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A 6 



LESSONS OF MIDDLE AGE 



By the same Author, 



The RECREATIONS of a COUNTRY PARSON. First 
Series. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. Second Series. 3s. 6d. 

The COMMONPLACE PHILOSOPHER in TOWN and 
COUNTRY. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 

LEISURE HOURS in TOWN. 
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 

The AUTUMN HOLIDAYS of a COUNTRY PARSON. 
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 

The CRITICAL ESSAYS of a COUNTRY PARSON. 
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 

SUNDAY AFTERNOONS at the PARISH CHURCH of 
a UNIVERSITY CITY. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 

The GRAVER THOUGHTS of a COUNTRY PARSON. 
First Series. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. Second Series, 
3s. 6d. 

COUNSEL and COMFORT SPOKEN from a CITY 

PULPIT. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
CHANGED ASPECTS of UNCHANGED TRUTHS: 

Memorials of St Andrews' Sundays. Crown Svo. 

35. 6d. 



LESSONS OF MIDDLE AGE 



WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF VARIOUS CITIES 
AND MEN 



BY THE AUTHOR OF 

"THE RECREATIONS OF A COUNTRY PARSON" 



CC^/a 



U4AT 







NEW EDITION 



' » ». » », » » 



LONDON 
LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 

1869 






edinburgh : 

printed by ballantyne and company, 

Paul's work. 












CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



PAGB 
OF AN ANCIENT CITY, . # . . . I 



CHAPTER II. 

CONCERNING TEN YEARS : WITH SOME ACCOUNT 

OF THINGS LEARNED IN THEM, 13 



CHAPTER III. 

THE REST OF IT, ...... 54 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE ORGAN IN SCOTLAND, .... 74 

CHAPTER V. 

CONCERNING ROADSIDE STATIONS : WITH SOME 

THOUGHTS ON THE TERMINUS AD QUEM, . 86 



vi Contents. 

CHAPTER VI. 

PAGR 
PRESBYTERIAN SERMONS FROM ARCHIEPISCOPAL 

CHURCHES, ....... 104 

CHAPTER VII. 

CONCERNING BEARDS: BEING THOUGHTS ON PRO- 
GRESS, SPECIALLY IN SCOTLAND, . . . 131 

CHAPTER VIII. 

CONCERNING THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING A CAN- 
TANKEROUS FOOL 5 WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON 
THE TREATMENT OF INCAPACITY, . . . l6j 

CHAPTER IX. 

CONCERNING THE TREATMENT OF SUCH AS 

DIFFER FROM US IN OPINION, . . . 1 80 



CHAPTER X. 

AMONG SOUTH-WESTERN CATHEDRALS, . • 211 

CHAPTER XI. 

CONCERNING THE HEADS OF BATTERING-RAMS J 
WITH SOME THOUGHTS TOUCHING THE RE- 
VIVIFICATION OF MUMMIES, .... 225 



Contents. vii 

CHAPTER XII. 

TACE 

GLASGOW DOWN THE WATEK, . . . .237 

CHAPTER XIII. 

A LITTLE TOUR IN MAY, ..... 265 



CONCLUSION 



30J 



% 



CHAPTER I. 

OF AN ANCIENT CITY. ' 

HAS it happened in the reader's experience, that 
there was some place which used to have for 
him a sort of mystic charm and fascination about it? It 
was not like other places : it was " an unsubstantial, fairy- 
place : " like the Vale of Avalon, like the Alhambra at 
Granada, like the Mosque of St Sophia ; like Mecca or 
Damascus to the man who has never been there. You 
remember the curious feeling that arose in you when you 
first saw that place. And how strange a thing it seemed, 
if it was appointed to you to grow familiar with it ! 
Perhaps the mystic charm vanished, when you came to 
know it better ; as the divinity that hedges a prince ceases 
to invest him to the view of his familiar friends. Perhaps 
the peculiar fascination was felt more and more deeply, 
as time went on : no familiarity having power to exorcise 
the genius of the place. 

It has happened to the present writer, that after having 
had his home and work in various scenes and atmospheres, 
he has at length been appointed to abide in a place which 
from his early years has had to him that mystic charm. 

A 



2 Of an Ancient City. 

And to very many besides him this place is in like manner 
transfigured. It is a gray old city of six thousand inhabi- 
tants and of more than a thousand years j not without its 
share of toil, worry, and gossip ; but through all the 
prosaic details of modern life and care, there comes a 
solemn undertone from past centuries ; as over the laugh 
of the lads gathered in the evening at the street corners, 
and the rattle of omnibus wheels running down to the 
railway station, there may be heard by such as listen for 
it the deep murmur of the surrounding sea. It is a city 
of solemn ruins and ivied walls ; of innumerable ancient 
remembrances, tragical and pleasant ; once of fiery storms 
and strifes, of heroic courage and martyr endurance, but 
now of academic quiet ; of scarlet gowns and black caps j 
of dear associations in the mind of many a country clergy- 
man, looking back through the softening haze of years on 
the season of his college life. Thus was it first shown to 
the writer. It was here his father studied : and that good 
man, though he lived to near fourscore, never saw it again 
after his student life was ended. Providence set him far 
away from it j and he ever spoke of it as a kind good 
man would speak of the abode (long unseen) of some ot 
his most hopeful years. What talks have I listened to, 
ever since I can remember, between men with gray heads, 
looking back with a fond enthusiasm on this home of 
their departed days ! It was a memorable hour, in which 
I first beheld the spires and colleges of the quaint and 
ancient city. And thus beholding it, did not the thought 
strongly press itself on the writer's mind, that if the 



Of an Ancient City. 3 

opportunity ever came of finding his home and duty here, 
that opportunity would be impossible to be resisted ? In 
all the land, it seemed as though this were his appointed 
place, where he could be at home as in no other. 

At length the day came when the cure of this city and 
parish became vacant by the sudden death of a certain 
great preacher and accomplished man j and the greatest 
honour that ever befell the writer in his lifetime came to 
him when he was thought worthy in some humble degree 
to take that eminent person's vacant place. The evening 
came whereon the writer was informed that two gentle- 
men were in his study desiring to see him j and entering 
to them, without the faintest thought of who they were 
or what was their errand, he found he had come, as we 
often do thus unexpectedly, to a great turning-point in 
his life. One face was familiar 5 the other was unknown : 
but the purpose of that visit was speedily made apparent. 
The writer had formed ties elsewhere, hard to break ; 
but, after a little time of great doubt and perplexity, he 
was led to a decision never for a moment regretted j 
and so he came here. It is two years ago : two years 
exactly, since he came 5 yet, though now knowing every- 
body, knowing all about the place, knowing thoroughly 
its life, its ways, its tendencies, the mystic glory has not 
gone from it at all. It is still as strange as ever to think 
his home and charge are in the sacred city, which bears 
the first-called apostle's name. It is a gray old place 
indeed ; and when you look along the chief street, look- 
ing towards the east, by winter moonlight or in summer 



4 Of an Ancient City. 

sunshine, its aspect is dreamy as that of no other place the 
writer knows in this hard-working country of liberal 
politics and literal sentiment. In these days the autumn 
fields round it are yellow with harvest ; and at sunset, the 
level September sun falls brightly on the recent houses of 
light-coloured freestone, and on the dark masses of the 
ancient ruins and spires. If you had walked out two 
miles to the west this afternoon, over a track of velvety 
turf leading through sandy downs beside the sea, and 
then turned and looked back on the scene glowing in the 
sunset, you would have thought involuntarily of the 
imagery of the Apocalypse. For there indeed was a 
Golden City, bounded by a sea of glass mingled with 
fire. 

Yet you come to it by a railway, as though it were an 
ordinary place : a curious railway of a single line of rails. 
That is its usual communication with the outer world. 
Our little railway turns off from the main line six miles 
away : coming first through rich fields, lacking trees and 
hedges, but great in their agricultural value ; winding 
down to the bank of a little river, which the flowing tide 
makes a large one ; crossing it by a wooden bridge set 
alongside a stone one centuries old, which will doubtless 
see the end of a good many wooden bridges : then skirting 
a broad lagoon, beautiful at high water, dreary at low $ 
then passing through sandhills and downs, till you come 
to a little wooden station of inexpressible shabbiness. 
There omnibusses wait : just like other omnibusses. They 
will convey you and your baggage where you will ; tra- 



Of an Ancient City. 5 

versing various streets and pausing at various doors ere 
they reach that which is your destination. 

This is again a bright sunshiny day, but with the crisp 
air of the latter half of September. If you had gone forth 
at eight in the morning, you would have been aware of 
that peculiar quality in the still atmosphere which one 
associates with ripened harvest fields silently waiting the 
sickle, or with the yellow stubble environed by trees and 
hedges still green. Pleasant are the pictures recalled by 
that quiet autumnal air ; bracing is its effect on body and 
mind. And if you had scrambled down a steep bank, 
and from the side of a jutting rock entered the clear ocean, 
you would have been effectually wakened up, and have 
returned with active step to the work of the day. Though 
this be the season of universal holiday-time, we are all 
at home. For the calls of duty so tie the writer that 
he cannot get away ; on Sundays his presence is needful. 
And the household is the more reconciled to abide in this 
place, by the reflection that truly there is no better place 
to go to in these weeks of autumn. But it is holiday-time 
with the children ; lessons are all forgot. And although 
it is an end hard of attainment in one's own parish, 
the writer is intermitting his work as much as may 
be ; and trying to cast off all thought of the regular 
round of duty. The Sunday comes, and he must preach 
to a great congregation j mainly of strange faces. Most 
of the inhabitants are gone for the time ; but instead of 
leaving behind them an empty church, whence the clergy- 
man may likewise be absent, (as was the pleasant fashion 



6 Of an Ancient City. 

in another city, left behind,) they leave their places to be 
filled up by manifold visitors. For this ancient city, of 
gray walls and green ivy, of stern rocks, broad sands, and 
wide sea, has become so much the autumnal resort of 
people from other places, that only the other day the 
writer had the mortification of reading an advertisement 
wherein it was described as " this rising and fashionable 
watering-place." Surely a sore degradation of the solemn 
University-seat and Cathedral city of fifteen hundred 
years ! 

But kings and queens come no more 5 and archbishops 
and princes are gone. The stirring days of this city's 
history are fled ; and such days are not likely to return. 
We have our University still, not without its famous names ; 
and from amid the ruins and ivy, the world both of 
science and of theology has heard the utterance of the 
most advanced thinking of the day. But the Cathedral 
church is a ruin -, though a lovely ruin even in its stern 
desolation ; and all the Cathedral staff has been long since 
swept away. The country, as Dr Samuel Johnson said, 
is " sunk into Presbyterianism." The stately services, the 
long processions, the gorgeously arrayed dignitaries of 
Roman days, have wholly disappeared. I do not believe 
that such a thing as a cope or chasuble exists where there 
used to be so many. No censer has swung here, neither 
has any brave witness for the truth been here burnt at the 
stake, for hundreds of years. Bitterly bad the ancient 
church must have been in Scotland, to have been so 
utterly cast down and cast out ; to have driven a whole 



Of an Ancient City. 7 

nation into the very extremity of the opposite extreme 
from it. And the extremity was extreme. Hideous have 
our churches been ; irreverent beyond expression our rural 
congregations 3 from the days of the Reformation till 
within a very few years of the present time. Anything in 
any way associated with the old worship and government,, 
however good in itself, has been summarily rejected by 
many. I have known good Christian folk who utterly 
repudiated a sentiment so harmless, and indeed so praise- 
worthy, as " Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and 
to the Holy Ghost." Not but these words expressed the 
feeling that was in their hearts ; but they would rather 
that feeling had been expressed in some other way. Yes : 
as for ecclesiastical pomp, there remains not here even the 
palest shadow of the ancient way. The ancient way has 
been wiped out for ever. Would that what in it was 
beautiful and right had been spared : the magnificent 
church, the noble organ, the voices audibly blended in 
common supplication, the uncovered head in the sacred 
precinct, the knee bent in prayer ! Even the mediaeval 
houses, mostly of wood, are gone ; only three dwellings in 
the city date from pre-Reformation days. The moral 
atmosphere is entirely changed since the days of the city's 
glory ; and even of material features, not much remains 
the same, unless the rocks, the sea, the sky. Doubtless 
that broad blue expanse on which I have just looked, 
ceaselessly fluctuating -, the low hills across the bay, fourteen 
miles off; and the long stretches of light yellow sand; look 
to me, in this clear September sunshine, as they did five 



8 Of an Ancient City. 

hundred years since to the cardinals and kings who gave 
this place its splendour ; as they did two thousand years 
since to the savages that here chased the wild boar. 

It is an evil, inherent in the present order of things, 
that there is no standing still. When you have got all 
your belongings as you would wish to have them, it is sad 
that they will not remain so. Your carpets wear out, 
and the morocco of your chairs : year by year your books 
get shabbier j and even if you can afford to bind the 
friendly volumes, you obliterate the old familiar faces, 
thus doing. Worst of all, your children grow older, and 
you have lost the little boy or girl of former years. It is 
all well, what you have got, in the confirmed vigour of 
body and mind; but still something is lost, something 
that was very dear. And your own feeling towards 
most things changes : thus comes that change within 
which makes the greatest change on things without. 
We grow accustomed to things; they cannot strike us 
now as they strike a stranger. Would that things would 
keep their first fresh feeling and racy enjoyableness ! 
But it goes off; and doubtless the edge of what is painful 
grows blunted as well as the edge of what is pleasant. 
These are the latter years : this is the time you used 
vaguely to look forward to, long ago. On the whole, 
they are the best days you have ever seen : thankfully 
does the writer acknowledge that for himself. Yet he 
has got on so far, that the haze of beauty is gathering 
round the past. And from this better time he looks 
back with a special interest on the days when he was a 



Of an Ancient City. g 

country parson, wandering much in leafy lanes, sitting 
much beneath the shade of great green trees. O the 
magnificent beeches and gnarled oaks, now far away ! 
For the trees here are few. People have got so much 
into the way of saying that the keen sea air would kill 
them, that they have not planted them : though they 
grow beautifully where they have the chance. In the 
quadrangle of that college which I see when I look up 
from my writing, there are two fine elms of graceful 
form ; and where two elms grow, how much more would 
two hundred ? But, not having been planted, of course 
they do not grow 5 and it is to be confessed that the coun-. 
try immediately surrounding the ancient place, is not 
without a certain aspect of bleakness. There are trees, 
indeed, and well-grown ones : it was a slanderous tongue 
that told Dr Johnson that there was just one tree in the 
city and another about ten miles off; but there are not 
trees enough to give the region that warm and rich shade 
which makes the glory of many other places. In its 
grandest days there never could have been here the 
beautiful close, with its rich foliage, which you may see 
round certain Anglican cathedrals. The archiepiscopal 
palace here was a fortified castle, frowning sternly on a 
bare cliff rising from a lonely sea : able to stand a siege, 
as it had to do now and then. And the cathedral, great 
in size and severe in the beauty of un decorated Gothic, 
stood boldly forth, on its rocky foundation, to the north- 
easter fresh from the German foam. A keen and sharp 
air must have been felt, on many days, even by such as 



io Of an Anciejit City. 

paced the cloisters 5 and the Gregorian music of matins 
and vespers must often have been blended with the roar 
of foaming waves. 

Wherein, then, lies the charm of the ancient city ? 
Well, it is hard to say. Doubtless it is there, and you feel 
it 5 but it exhales, it vanishes, it is gone, when you try 
to analyse it. It is not the beauty of the surrounding 
country. For though the wide sea is grand, and the 
broad sands unrivalled, yet the inland landscape is com- 
paratively featureless -, featureless by comparison in a 
country whose features are in many places so beautiful, 
in some so sublime. It is an undulating landscape that 
stretches around, bare of hedges, bare of trees j nor are 
the hills high enough to be heathery. There are wide 
prospects in all directions : the eye grows accustomed 
here to look at vast stretches of view. There are real 
mountains to be seen in the distance, if you look across 
the bay : and turning to the east, there is nothing to 
break the expanse of water till you get to Denmark. 
But close around the city, there are no great avenues of 
green shade, making twilight on the bright summer day; 
and though there are two little streams, there is nothing 
nearer than several miles that deserves to be called a river. 
There are no hedge-rows, fragrant with honeysuckle and 
wild roses ; the blossoming hawthorn does not perfume 
the air of June. It is an austere beauty that is here 
resent ; and the sea is the great thing after all : with 
blue waves in sunshine, and black waves in storm. The 
charm is mainly in antiquity ; in the gray age of the look 



Of an Ancient City. 1 1 

the place takes, when you see it in the light of its old 
associations - } in its academic tone ; in its monastic quiet j 
and, to some degree, in making believe very much. For 
if you be one of those to whom the days spent in a visit 
to an English cathedral city are a perpetual feast ; who 
gloat over the old houses of wood ; who pervade every 
nook of the close ; who are aware of a sanctity thrown 
over all the scene, from the vast house of prayer, with its 
gigantic towers, its solemn bells, its long aisles, its ancient 
oak, its windows like the Northern sunset, its white-robed 
train, its sublime music ; to whom anything Gothic has a 
charm unspeakable j and if it be appointed to you to live 
in a country where there are no cathedrals and no ecclesi- 
astical pomp, but where the sense of beauty is outraged 
by ninety-nine churches in every hundred, and where 
you are surrounded by good folk most of whom cannot 
even understand how some natures crave for the beautiful 
in architecture and are revolted by the hideous j then here 
alone in that country have you some faint echo of the 
thing you rejoice to see. And if you be one who delight 
in pacing academic courts, with their flavour of antique 
learning and hopeful youthfulness together j if Oxford be 
in your memory a glorious vision of t&wer, spire, quad- 
rangle, and grove 5 and if even the less charming town 
by the Cam, with its canal-like river and its magnificent 
avenues behind the colleges, be cherished in remem- 
brance 5 then here you have some shadow, befitting a 
poorer kingdom, of the like learned haunts. Here are 
various collegiate quadrangles, all of them Gothic, one 



12 Of an Ancient City. 

of them cloistered,, wherein one may walk up and down 
and mildly rejoice j here you may pass under ancient 
archways, where the learned and the heroic have gone 
before you. Here you may look upon the graceful leaf- 
like form of the pointed window j and come after much 
instruction to know by example what is meant by Byzan- 
tine architecture, what by Norman, what by Early Eng- 
lish, what by Decorated, what by Perpendicular. Simple 
and humble are some instances of these ; very grand some 
others j but if you had lived in places where for months 
you never saw a pointed arch, nor indeed a round one 
unless in a bridge, you would know how to value all 
these things. The love of Gothic art, starved elsewhere 
in this country, here finds some food : in what you may 
esteem a humbler Canterbury and Oxford both in one. 

Such is the scene from which the writer sends forth 
this volume of essays. Several others have gone before 
it ; and this, he may say with some confidence, is the 
last. There is little time now, for the production of such 
pages : though they have found many readers and gained 
many friends. And the writer has insensibly drifted away 
from that stage in which to write these essays was natural 
and pleasant. Graver duties await him, fitted for grave 
middle-age 5 nor is he without the hope that, ceasing 
from these pages, he may, by abundant labour, be able to 
produce some work of such weighty thought and deep 
insight as no human being shall ever care to read. 



CHAPTER II. 

CONCERNING TEN YEARS : WITH SOME ACCOUNT 
OF THINGS LEARNED IN THEM. 

THIS afternoon, I went and saw several sick persons, 
rich and poor, whom it was my duty to go and 
see. Some of them dwell in very handsome houses \ 
some in very poor little cottages. It is pleasant, when 
one has to visit sick folk who are poor, to find that it is 
not necessary (as it often is in towns) to climb long and 
unsavoury stairs, but that the humble friends to be visited 
abide in real quaint country cottages, which the advancing 
city has yet spared. Pleasant to me is the little bit of 
grass in front, and the old untended hedge of thorn ; 
pleasant the lowly dwelling of one story, with its weather- 
stained walls and its roof of red tiles -, pleasant its homely 
interior, that carries one's thoughts back to a certain 
country parish long unseen. Capriciously, the advancing 
tide of building here and there spares such a place ; in a 
little while to be engulfed by the great stone and mortar 
sea. 

In such a place, this afternoon, an aged grandmother 
told me an instance of the extraordinary precocity and 



14 Concerning Ten Years: with some 

understanding of a little grandson, who stood casting bash- 
ful yet wistful looks at the visitor from beneath a great 
mass of uncombed hair. Each Sunday that little man 
attends divine service at a certain church, concerning 
which I desire to say, that if any intelligent reader chooses 
to send me ten thousand pounds, or even five thousand, 
to expend on the beautifying of it, the wish of that 
intelligent reader shall be faithfully and lovingly car- 
ried into execution. On returning from church on a 
forenoon on which it happened that the present writer 
did not preach, that fine little man with the great head 
of hair has been known to use such words as the follow- 
ing : " We hadna our ain minister the day : it was anither 
man that preached." I listened to the good old grand- 
mother, relating these facts, with the reverence and in- 
terest with which, for many reasons, I always listen to 
anything told concerning little children by those most 
nearly related to them, who cannot have much of life to 
come. It is a contrast that never ceases to touch, and 
that is always most suggestive, childhood and as^e side by 
side : the little feet that may have so many weary steps 
before them, and the aged ones whose long rest must be 
near. I suppose the lines you may read here are very 
commonplace, and I don't know who wrote them ; but I 
read them in a newspaper ten years ago, and I cannot 
forget them, though I have forgot all the rest of the 
poem : — 

They lie upon my pathway bleak, 
These flowers that once grew wild, 



Account of Things learned in them. 1 5 

As on a father's careworn cheek 

The ringlets of his child : 
The golden mingled with the gray, 
And chasing half its gloom away. 

But besides the general consideration which would have 
made the important narrative interesting, it had chanced 
that on the same day an analogous history had been re- 
lated to me in a very different scene. In a very hand- 
some drawing-room, not very far away from the little red- 
tiled cottage, a young mother had bewailed to me the 
increase of slang, even among the very young : adding as 
an instance the following information. Her son, aged 
five, and her daughter, aged eight, had a little quarrel. 
The daughter desired to make it up again : the boy was 
obdurate in the sense of ill-usage. On which the little 
girl said persuasively, holding out a friendly hand, " Come, 
Frank, and extend the flapper of friendship ! " And the 
little boy was instantly melted and won by so touching 
an appeal to his better feelings. 

If the metaphysical reader is under the impression that 
these incidents are related with the design of enforcing 
or illustrating any principle, all that need be said is that 
the metaphysical reader is very far mistaken. The writer 
is slowly but surely approaching his proper subject, by a 
path which, though apparently devious, is in truth straight 
as an arrow. These brief narratives are to be esteemed 
in the light of a rapid glance to right and another to left 
as he proceeds ; but their relation to the matter to be 
discussed at great length in the following pages is one 



1 6 Concerning Ten Years : with some 

which it would take too much time to set forth satisfac- 
torily. And, that it may not be set forth in an unsatis- 
factory manner, I have been led, after much reflection, to 
resolve not to set it forth at all. 

Having seen various sick persons till about five o'clock, 
I then ceased from that interesting but sometimes very 
trying duty ; and proceeded to take a short rapid walk in 
the waning light. It was a frosty afternoon, one of the 
earliest of November : the air was crisp, and all the 
western sky was red : ruddy was the glow cast on the 
windows of that suburban lane, and upon the faces of 
the passers-by. Certain circumstances, not of general 
importance, made the writer's thoughts turn upon that 
great, familiar, and unutterably touching matter, of the 
lapse of time. Never again, after to-morrow's sun has 
risen, will he be able to call himself the same number of 
years old that to-night he still may. But the special 
thought suggested was this, How differently different 
people take the lapse of time, and bear their years. 
There were many trees, small and great, by the sides of 
that suburban way. And what struck one » was this. 
Some had their leaves quite green, even to-day, when 
most leaves are crisp and sere, and when many have 
fallen. And beholding a quite green tree, thick with 
leaves, and a bare withered tree of the same species, side 
by side, one could not help thinking, Now that tree is 
like Smith, and that other like Brown. Brown is 
withered ; Smith is green. Each is of the other's age in 
fact j but how different in appearance ; and yet more in 



Account of Things learned in them. iy 

feeling. Yet the fact doubtless is, that though Smith 
and Brown belong to the genus human being, and to the 
species clergyman, they differ constitutionally and essen- 
tially. They differ, even as that tall acacia, with its 
drooping leaves, green as in June, differs from that russet: 
beech that shows a ragged bulk against the sky, and that 
has strewn this pathway deep with rustling leaves. Yes, 
there are not many things in which people differ more 
from one another, than in the fashion in which they take 
the lapse of time. 

There are folk who begin to feel as though winter had 
come, early in September. There are those who, at that 
month's middle, or even its end, think that it is almost 
summer still. I have been told by a lady who began 
early to feel as if old, how once, when some one had. 
spoken of her as young, she interrupted that person, and 
(in all good faith) exclaimed, " Oh, no 5 you don't know 
how old I am : I am nearly a quarter of a century !" Of 
course that was a solemn way of putting the case; a 
quarter of a century sounds as though it denoted quite a 
different number from jive-and-twenty. We do not now 
esteem the age thus gravely denoted as a venerable one ; 
but probably many readers can remember a time when. 
they thought four-and-twenty (for something was lacking; 
of the quarter of a century) very old. For young or old is 
a matter relative to your position. My friend Smith, who 
is a clergyman, related to me that when he came to be 
thirty-eight, he esteemed himself as very old indeed. But 
a sudden change was wrought in his feeling by the fact,. 



1 8 Concerning Ten Years : with some 

that a certain famous University made him, at that age, 
a Doctor of Divinity. This circumstance, which might 
have tended to number him (in his own judgment as 
well as in the judgment of others) among the grave and 
reverend seniors of his profession, had just the opposite 
effect. For, as he said with great force of reason, 
" Though I am old for a human being, I am young for a 
Doctor of Divinity !" And if a man be enabled to think 
himself young quoad hoc, he will readily proceed to think 
himself young simpliciter. 

And now, my friend, you and I are going to look back 
from this calm and mild November evening, over ten 
years. We are going to compare our experience of that 
time, and of what it has left behind it. 

There is a part of our life, in which ten years teach us 
more than we shall learn (if we see them) in the next 
thirty, not to say forty. It may be pleasant, and not 
quite unprofitable, to sum the gains of that time in the 
matter of knowledge acquired. You do not expect. or 
wish me, indeed, to name the greatest lessons those ten 
years past to-night have left behind them ; or the most 
vital influences they have exerted. This is not the time 
or place. Yet we can think of some not unfit to be 
mentioned here. 

How do you think and feel about Money, middle-aged 
reader, as compared with the way in which you thought 
and felt about it ten years ago ? 



Account of Things learned in them, 1 9 

Most readers of the English language remember little 
Paul Dombey's question, What is Money ? They re- 
member likewise how his father vainly tried to give that 
thoughtful little man an answer which might satisfy him. 
But there is nothing which more effectually delivers us 
from all speculative difficulties than the want of money j 
and any human being who would be too thankful if he 
could be assured he would always be able to pay his 
way, will generally be quite content with the definition 
of money as pounds, shillings, and pence. We all know 
the small round things which people are so anxious to 
get, and which can get their possessors so much. We 
know, likewise, the crisp, rustling, clean bits of thin 
paper which in England represent gold and silver; and 
some readers probably know the dirty, sticky, and occa- 
sionally ragged squares of vegetable tissue which in Scot- 
land do the like. Then the great question of greenbacks 
suggests itself to the perplexed mind; and a vision, in- 
distinct and far-extending, of the many odd materials 
which in different portions of the earth serve as a circu- 
lating medium. But into such matters we shall not be 
tempted aside ; and more need not be said, than that we 
all know what is meant by money. 

It is all very welL for Dr Newman, who never knew 
in all his life what it was to be unable to pay his baker, 
or to buy shoes for his children, to be rent asunder by 
such matters as the establishment of the Jerusalem 
bishopric : or even to bring himself to daily doubt whether 
in this world there be anything except himself — perhaps 



20 Concerning Ten Years : with some 

not that. But a poor clergyman with six children, an 
ailing wife, and a hundred and fifty pounds a year, feels 
these things not at all. " The hound that is chasing the 
game," says the Spanish proverb, "does not feel the 
fleas." And one good that comes of the want of money 
is, that it keeps us from feeling the want of certain other 
things. Fanciful wants are real to the man who has 
every real want supplied and anticipated. It was a Duke, 
with limitless estates, and who could command everything 
in this world that wealth and rank can obtain, who arrived 
at the condition of mind in which his earnest desire was, 
the Thames at Richmond should run dry. " Oh, that 
weary river, always running, running, and I so tired of 
it ! " You might gradually bring any human being to 
that, by thoro uglily supplying each successive want he 
felt. And on the other side, by cutting orF the supply 
of the simplest wants, you might have made the Duke 
content, for the while, with very little. Wreck his yacht 
off some savage coast : half drown him : let him struggle 
to shore with life pretty nearly extinct : then pick him up 
and take care of him. And in half-an-hour, how thank- 
ful the man that wanted the Thames to cease running, or 
that cried for the moon, will be for a dry blanket and a 
tumbler of hot grog ! » 

Not for long, of course. No human being will be con- 
tent for long. We all want something more. You want 
something more, my friendly reader. I wish you may get 
it. I want something more too. I want that ten thousand 
pounds already named. Don't you wish I may get it ? 



Account of Things learned in them. 2 1 

These things, however, although important and inter- 
esting in a high degree, ought to come in later in this 
discussion. I write of money. Not that I am going to 
set forth its praises. That is sufficiently done in all books 
of Political Economy. These works, for the most part, 
leave us with the impression that to increase in material 
wealth is a nation's great end. A very venerable autho- 
rity has informed us that the love of money is the root of 
all evil. Doubtless that is so. We have all seen many 
things that make it plain. And yet, the moderate desire 
to get money is the root of much good. Why does the 
London cabman turn out on a drenching rainy day, and 
(himself exposed to the elements) convey you in luxury, 
seated on the greasy plush, and with your feet in the 
musty straw, whither you would ? It cannot be because 
he loves you so much ; for he never beheld you before. 
No ; it is the sixpence a mile. And to him the accumu- 
lating sixpences mean food and shelter : his cup of tea, 
his jug of beer. The like simple principle prevails in all 
other cases. People take trouble to serve you because 
you pay them for it. 

There are many people who would do almost anything 
for money. I speak of people who maintain a reputable 
character. There are too many w,ho would get money by 
any means whatever 5 who, to that end, would cut a throat, 
would swindle a poor wretch out of his last shilling, would 
forge a will, would marry an infamous woman. But of 
these last I am not thinking now. I think of people who 
go to church and the like, and think themselves extremely 



22 Concerning Ten Years: with some 

good and respectable. I have known one or two farmers, 
paying a rent of a good many hundreds a year, who would 
tell you a lie to get half-a-crown by it. I have known, 
too, many persons, in a humbler rank, whom it would 
have been very unsafe to trust with untold copper. And 
there are respectable households where the pervading 
atmosphere keeps ceaselessly though silently saying, ' ' Get 
money 5 rightly if you can; but get money." You have 
not come to that, my reader : but perhaps you may be 
willing to confess that ten years' experience has made you 
stand a good deal in awe of money. You have seen what 
it can do : you have seen what the want of it can do. 
How much evil, what misery and destitution, what sin 
and ruin, every clergyman in a large town parish has seen 
come of the want of money ! Let it be said, that the utter 
want of it is in most cases the consequence of sin, as well 
as the cause of sin and misery : but, sad to say, the conse- 
quence often falls on those who have nothing to do with 
the cause. Here let me say that if you had seen and 
known what I have seen and known, you would wish to 
see the boasted liberty of the British subject sharply 
interfered with in two not uncommon cases. When the 
father of a family of poor little children is a skilled work- 
man, who could maintain them, and maintain himself, in 
comfort and respectability if he chose to work steadily: 
and when he does not choose to work steadily, but earns 
enough to keep himself generally drunk, leaving his wife 
and children to starve by cold and hunger; I don't hesi- 
tate to say that I wish that man was treated as Virginian 






Account of Things learned in them. 23 

1 

slaves used to be, 2nd made to work under the lash to 
earn that which may support those he is bound to main- 
tain. A man who does not know how to use freedom 
has no right to it. After a certain length of time of such 
accursed heartlessness and cruelty and selfishness as I have 
known, let that man's liberty be forfeited ; let him be 
taken and made to labour as a slave in public charge ; and 
let what he earns be applied to support his wife and chil- 
dren. It would be a mercy to himself : but the truth is, 
I don't care a straw for himself. Charitable people are 
placed in a cruel dilemma by such cases. If you support 
the poor hungry children, you are just encouraging their 
blackguard father to go on in his evil ways. And on the 
other hand, you cannot let them perish: you will not 
willingly let them suffer. My other case in which a 
righteous interference with personal liberty is demanded, 
is that of poor creatures who have acquired an invincible 
habit of drunkenness. After a while, they cannot retrieve 
themselves and reform. In their sober moments, they 
speak as reasonably as mortal can of the insanity which 
possesses them : they tell you truly that they cannot help it. 
The sight of a whisky-shop or a gin-palace is to such an over- 
whelming temptation. As regards drinking, their case 
is hopeless as was Sir Walter Scott's as regarded writing. 
When that great man knew it was killing him to write, 
he could not cease. You remember his sad comparison. 
<f Molly might as well put the kettle on the fire, and say, 
• Now, don't boil ! ' ' Now, such wretched drunkards as 
I have mentioned, would, when in their right mind, be 



24 Concerning Ten Years: with some 

thankful to put themselves under some irresistible power j 
thankful for some iron hand that would come in and save 
them from themselves. Surely the day will come when 
the law will come in and save them. Already, the law 
will not allow a woman to walk on a rope a hundred 
feet from the ground, and the like. It will abridge your 
liberty by taking care of you against your will, physically. 
Why not morally? 

Well, of course, we can all see reasons why. But in 
this particular case, let the experiment be made. 

I remember how, reading as a young lad Paley's Moral 
Philosophy , I used rebelliously to rise up against many of 
the great man's, statements in the famous chapter on 
Human Happiness ; and especially against the declaration, 
that Happiness consists in Health. For it seemed very 
plain, that though the absence of health may keep you 
from being happy, it is by no means sure that its presence 
will make you happy. I do not take up the further con- 
sideration, that some of the happiest people we have 
ever known, managed to be happy without health. But 
as with Paley's health, so is it with money, as regards hap- 
piness. The presence of money, everybody knows, will 
not make you and keep you right : but the want of it, as 
a general rule, will make you and keep you wrong. You 
may remember how Thomas Campbell the poet, after a 
hard struggle with straitened circumstances lasting through 
several years, thought he could bear any earthly trial 
more easily than the want of money. " Take any shape 






Account of Things learned in them. 25 

but that!" he said to misfortune. Think of Hazlitr, 
walking London streets, meeting a friend, and saying, 
" For God's sake give me a shilling : I feel a raging tire 
within me : I have eaten nothing since yesterday morn- 
ing ! " You may see from what is told us of many great 
men, that their saddest and most humiliating troubles 
have come of the want of money. Little of the genius of 
poor Robert Burns appears in the letters he wrote entreat- 
ing the loan of a few pounds. 

But I do not think of Otway and his roll ; nor of 
Chatterton starving 5 nor of Johnson and Savage 5 nor of 
the awful glimpses of Grub-street authors we owe to Pope. 
I do not think now of bare garrets which I know 5 nor of 
poor little neglected children, often hungry, always ragged. 
The want of money pinches as painfully a good way fur- 
ther up the social scale. The straits of gentility are not 
undeserving of pity ; though they may not get it in due 
measure. Can you imagine an instance of more thorough 
misery than that which Mr Thackeray gave us in the 
Book of Snobs, describing poor Major Ponto and the extra- 
vagance of his contemptible jackass of a son ? 

" I found poor Pon in his study among his boots, but 
in such a rueful attitude of despondency that I could not 
but remark it. ' Look at that,' says the poor fellow, 
handing me over a document. ' It's the second change 
in uniform since he 's been in the army, and yet there 's no 
extravagance about the lad. But look at that ! by heaven, 
Snob, look at that, and say how can a man of nine hun- 
dred keep out of the Bench ? ' He gave a sob as he 



26 Concerning Ten Years: with some 

handed me the paper across the table ; and his old face, 
and his old corduroys, and his shrunk shooting-jacket, and 
his lean shanks, looked, as he spoke, more miserably 
haggard, bankrupt, and threadbare." 

Now that is the kind of poverty and wretchedness of 
which I want you to think. Major Ponto, if he could 
have made up his mind to retrench his establishment, to 
send his lazy son to Australia or New Zealand, and to 
cease trying to keep up a false appearance of means he 
did not possess, would have had a revenue more than 
amply sufficient to procure for him and his the " bread 
to eat and raiment to put on." And possibly many 
people who have much less than nine hundred a year 
would find their pecuniary difficulties depart, if they 
could make up their mind to go down some steps in life. 
The poor clergyman already named, with six children and 
a hundred and fifty pounds a year, would be a compara- 
tively wealthy man if he were to live exactly as labourers 
do j and especially if he gave up finally the endeavour to 
bring up his children as ladies and gentlemen. If his 
daughters went out as servants, and his sons became day- 
labourers, the whole family would always (bating some 
great misfortune) have plenty to eat, and garments that 
would exclude cold. But then, as you know, it comes 
to this : that the poor clergyman cannot make up his 
mind to all this : he will pinch himself blue, and his wife 
will wear her fingers to the hone, rather than give up the 
battle to keep the place in life, the degree in the social 
scale, which belongs to even a very poor clergyman, if he 



Account of Things learned in them. 2 7 

faithfully do his duty. And forasmuch as this retreat to 
a lower level, where only the bare wants of nature will 
be felt, is a thing not to be, there remains just the battle 
with limited means 5 that terrible battle of self-denial, 
anxiety, and sordid, ceaseless calculation, that has broken 
the spring of many hearts, and cut short many lives. A 
well-meaning lady has recently published a little volume 
which professes to explain how a house may be managed 
on £100 a year. And here is her not very encouraging 
picture of what the wife in such a house must be : — 

" All who marry on ^200 a year must be educated for 
such a limit, or must educate themselves for it. They 
must be early risers, methodical managers, have an inti- 
mate knowledge of wholesome cookery and useful needle- 
work -, must be economical of time, careful of waste 
pieces, of dripping, of suet, of bones, and of cinders, 
which are all of the greatest use in household manage- 
ment." 

Well, thinking of the want of money, and of the straits 
and anxieties which come of it, one thinks of such a per- 
son as the father or mother of that family ; and of sorry 
schemings to make the most of <( waste pieces, dripping, 
suet, bones, and cinders." One thinks of people with an 
income a great deal larger, who, in relation to their 
different position, may have just as hard and ceaseless a 
battle, though not exactly in the same ways. Think of 
Sydney Smith at his dismal Yorkshire living. It was 
^400 a year, and he had various methods of adding 
something to it; yet you know how, for all his cheerful 



28 Concerning Ten Years: with some 

temperament and his " short views," he would sometimes, 
as he sat in the evenings looking over his accounts, and 
planning how to pay them, fairly break down, bend his 
head upon his hands on the table, and burst out, " Ah ! 
I see I shall end in gaol ! " There must have been a 
constant heavy pressure always on that brave heart, before 
Sydney Smith, with his stout nervous system and his 
splendid circulation, yielded thus ! And I don't know a 
picture that touches me more deeply, than that of man 
or woman, the father of a family or its widowed mother, 
sitting up after the rest have gone to bed, adding up 
accounts which there are very scanty means to pay, and 
scheming hard to make ten shillings do the work of 
twenty. Cannot you see such a one, not able to add the 
figures rightly : casting up some column of figures ten 
times over, and ten times getting a different result from 
all the rest : looking with pure terror for what the awful 
amount will be : and all this with trembling hands, a 
throbbing confused head, and a heart far heavier than 
lead ? All this may be borne with little outward appear- 
ance. But rely on it, it is telling. It is wearing the 
poor heart out. It is sapping life. 

How the least movement will jar at such a time miser- 
ably on the shaken nerves ! A little child stirring in the 
room will make the figures incapable of addition ; even 
the poor cat is apt to be angrily ordered out. And then 
the awful prospects of the future : the sickening calcula- 
tion of what will become of the children : the scheming 
how to pare a little closer, anywhere : I believe firmly 






Account of Things learned i7i them. 29 

that not the poor beggar on London street or country 
highway, suffers such anxiety and misery about the pro- 
curing of the means of subsistence, as do many most 
reputable folk, maintaining a highly respectable appear- 
ance before the world. But yearly the poor head is 
getting under water : the strength to work and to bear is 
being sapped; and the ceaseless dread of impending mis- 
fortune takes possession. 

" Is your mind at ease ?" (t No, it is not." Of course 
you know the story of poor Goldsmith's last hours. It 
was the want of money that killed that delightful writer 
at the age of forty-five. He did not see how to pay his 
debts, or how he was to live. There was little spring 
left in his constitution, and so he could not stand an illness 
which a hopeful heart would have made little of. Let us 
listen to Mr Forster. 

" A week passed : the symptoms so fluctuating in the 
course of it, and the evidence of active disease so evidently 
declining, that even sanguine expectations of recovery 
would appear to have been at one time entertained. But 
Goldsmith could not sleep. His reason seemed clear; 
what he said was always perfectly sensible : ' he was at 
times even cheerful 5 ' but sleep had deserted him, his 
appetite was gone, and it became obvious, in the state of 
weakness to which he had been reduced, that want of 
sleep might in itself be fatal. It then occurred to Dr 
Turton to put a very pregnant question to his patient. 
* Your pulse,' he said, * is in greater disorder than it 
should be from the degree of fever which you have. Is 



30 Concerning Ten Years : with some 

your mind at ease ?* ' No, it is not,'' was Goldsmith's 
melancholy answer. They are the last words we are to 
hear him utter in this world. The end arrived suddenly 
and unexpectedly/' 

I remember well how a physician told me of a poor 
fellow, an unbeneficed preacher, who came to consult 
him about some illness he had. Suitable remedies were 
prescribed ; and it did not seem that much was the matter ; 
yet the poor man did not get better. In fact, he was 
living in a little lodging he could not pay : he had not a 
friend in the world who could help him : all his hopes in 
life were blighted : and all the doctors in Britain and all 
the medicines in the Pharmacopoeia could make nothing 
of such a case. But the physician was wealthy as well 
as kind : and he devised means, not medical, which with 
wonderful speed restored that poor fellow to health and 
hope. Do you remember how it is recorded of Thackeray, 
that in one of his latest visits to Paris, a friend called for 
him, and found him putting some sovereigns into a pill- 
box, on which he wrote, Dr Thackeray's prescription : 
one to be taken occasionally. And on the friend asking 
the meaning of this, the kind-hearted great man replied, 
that he had a poor friend in a drooping state, who could 
not mend by all means tried ; and he thought he had hit 
upon the right medicinal gum. Let us trust Dr Thack- 
eray's prescription proved most effectual. Of one thing 
we may be quite sure : to wit, that the treatment of that 
poor patient did great good to the Doctor himself. And 
he has gone where it will not be forgotten. 






Account of Things learned in them. 3 1 

Then it is not merely that the want of money may 
make people miserable: it may make them bad. No 
doubt Becky Sharpe thought quite rightly when she 
thought she could have been very good if she had had 
five thousand a year. Trouble and sorrow often do 
human beings great good ; but not when they come in 
the shape of the want of money. A poor anxious middle- 
aged father of a little family, if he go on for three or 
four years with the dread or reality of debt lying with a 
dull weight on his heart, and ever watching to save the 
occasional sixpence : screwing himself in the matter of 
clothes, never buying a book, walking long distances be- 
cause he cannot afford to ride, toiling on when the doctor 
has told him he must definitively give up all work for a 
time : will not merely come to have wretched sleepless 
nights and horrible dreams, likewise occasional attacks of 
that dreadful pressure on the brain which, unchecked, 
means apoplexy or insanity, and the ever-growing irri- 
tability of the nervous system which points to paralysis 
■or angina pectoris. Worse things will come. His whole 
.moral nature will be deteriorated. He will grow frac- 
tious and ill-tempered, soured and envious : he will say 
bitter and malicious things ; he will come to hate those 
who are better off than himself. Let the present writer 
(who is indeed a Doctor, though not of medicine) offer 
a prescription suitable to that perilous time. At such a 
time it is good to try to help or comfort somebody. 
This may be done without giving that money which you 
have not got. Let me tell vou a story which I never 



3 1 Concerning Ten Years : with some 

forget, which was told me long ago by a dear and wise 
friend. On a certain morning, as he was on his way, 
walking to a place several miles off, he met the postman : 
and from that terrible . unconscious arbiter of destiny he 
received a certain letter. With a shaky hand he opened 
it, when the postman had departed ; and therein read 
certain tidings, briefly told, which (as he fancied) utterly 
blighted his hopes for this life. Such fancies are com- 
monly wrong ; and in his case the fancy proved signally 
so. Having put the letter in his pocket, he went away 
up a lonely hill, all by himself, pursuing his intended 
path. The ground felt indistinct under his feet ; and all 
sounds strange to his whirling brain. But in a very soli- 
tary spot in the bosom of the hill, he heard a curious 
noise ; and turning aside to see, he found a poor sheep 
lying on its back, frantically struggling. Jt had got its 
fleece entangled in some long tough sprays of bramble : 
these had got twisted round it ; and after each new 
struggle it sunk into a state of exhaustion that showed 
death was not far off if relief did not come fast. My 
friend was roused from his gloomy stupor. Here, said 
he, is a creature as miserable as myself. With a clasp- 
knife he speedily set the sheep at liberty. The poor 
sheep got on its feet, and its life was saved. My friend 
told me his heart was a good deal lightened by this little 
opportunity of helping a fellow-creature. And from that 
day, whether owing to the sheep or not he could not say, 
his affairs revived : his fortunes looked up : he became a 
very prosperous and successful man. 



Account of Things learned in them. $3 

So much for Money. 

A good many years ago, the writer was standing in the 
Court of Chancery, in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Lord Truro 
was Chancellor. The time was 3.30 p.m. The present 
Attorney- General, then Mr Roundell Palmer, was speak- 
ing. He made a pause at the end of a paragraph in what 
was doubtless a very able speech. Then, after the pause, he 
resumed -, but he was speedily cut short. For the Chan- 
cellor, suddenly rising, said, with a bow, " Ah, I see you 're 
going upon another ah ah — : " and then bowing again, 
scuttled out of court in a manner characterised rather by 
rapidity than by dignity ; leaving the counsel to gather 
up his papers and put the.m in his bag and depart. This 
procedure was the occurrence described in the Times as 
the rising of the court. It was less imposing to witness 
than to read of. 

Now, intelligent reader, why do I look back over more 
than ten years, and recall that incident of the past ? 
Simply for this reason 5 and let me beg your attention to 
it. I, like the Attorney- General, have now finished one 
portion of my subject. Like him, I have made a brief 
pause. And now, in the words of Lord Chancellor 
Truro, I am going upon another topic, or head of discourse. 
You see I have ventured to complete the sentence which 
the Keeper of Her Majesty's conscience left in obscurity. 
It is all very well for a great man like him to do these 
things. But in print, there is no more established verity 
than this : If a sentence have been once begun, it is highly 
expedient to finish it. 



34 Concerning Ten Years: with some 

As we go on, through successive years, we find that life 
is a longer thing than we had fancied. There is a great 
deal of spending, wrote Thackeray, in a thousand pounds : 
and we find out that (short as life seems) there is a great 
deal of living in three score years and ten — yes, and even 
in the odd ten years. Thus, as we grow older ourselves, 
we come to understand better what an immense deal old 
people must be remembering. I doubt not, middle-aged 
reader, that this is one of the convictions that have been 
profoundly impressed on you by these last ten years. Ten 
years ago, you thought yourself nearly as old as any- 
body. You know better now. I am sure you feel 
a growing disposition to defer to your seniors. Your 
own little experience of what a human being may go 
through in a not very long life, has opened your eyes 
to the meaning of a life of fifty, of sixty, of sixty-five 
years. 

Eleven years ago, I went to a certain place, to buy a 
fire-proof safe. I don't mind frankly confessing to you 
that its use is to hold the parchments which are the title- 
deeds of my various estates, which have at different times 
been purchased with the great sums yielded by my excel- 
lent writings, all of which are worthy of your attentive 
consideration. The safe likewise contains the crosses and 
orders which I have received from the Emperor of China, 
the King of Bonney, and other foreign potentates. I 
remember vividly the words of the friend from whom I 
bought the safe. He advised me to take a good big one : 
bigger than I needed at that period : for, said he, you will 






Account of Things learned in them. 35 

find that you are always putting something more into your 
tire-proof safe. 

That statement proved to be true. But I have learned, 
since then, what is the great box or safe into which you 
are always putting. It is your memory. No matter how 
full that receptacle is already, every day you are obliged to 
put something more into it. At last, as you know, old 
people find that the box (as it were) bursts open, and lets 
out the last things put in 5 while the things put into it 
many a year ago remain safe in its depths. 

If you, my reader, being thirty-five, are standing along 
with a friend whose years are sixty-five, at the top of a 
hill, you each command precisely the same extent of 
scenery. At least, if there be a difference between the 
scenes present to each of two men so placed, the difference 
arises solely from causes in the men themselves. Perhaps 
your less worn eyes can see farther and more clearly than 
those of your elder friend, which have seen more service. 
Or it is just as likely that the senior in years has the advan- 
tage in power of vision 5 the young men of this genera- 
tion, whether from over-application or from the prevalent 
use of gas-light, don't seem to have so good eyes as their 
fathers. You will hardly believe it, but my friend Smith 
tells me that he has known an educated man cast up to 
another man (suffer the Scotticism; it is expressive), as 
something to his disadvantage, the fact that by hard study 
he had become near-sighted. " You are half-blind, you 
know," was the kind and sympathetic remark. Of course, 
there is no reply to such a charge. Yet I have witnessed 



36 Concerning Ten Years : with some 

a fair retort extinguish a like assailant. " Here comes 
Brown/' exclaimed Blockhead in a railway carriage sur- 
rounded by his fellows : " Here comes Brown with his old 
bald head." et Yes," said Brown, promptly but with 
entire composure : " the outside of my head is rapidly 
becoming as ill-furnished as the inside of yours has always 
been." The severity of the statement lay in its sober 
truth. And this, to follow associations as Mrs Nickleby 
was wont to do, reminds me of a parallel reply which I 
once heard with pleasure. Mr Carper, a pompous and 
stupid vicar, began to relate to an assembled company, in 
the presence of a man who had been his curate but who 
was now a neighbouring rector, some turgid and foolish 
sentences from sermons which that man had preached 
in his days of immaturity, crudity, and curacy. The ex- 
curate bore it good-naturedly for a while. But at length 
he said, " Well, Vicar, it is good in you to remember so 
much of my sermons : for I confess, though I heard you 
preach each Sunday morning for a good many months, I 
cannot remember a single sentence ever I heard you say." 
The assembled people were plunged into deep thought. 
Dead silence prevailed. You could see each was consider- 
ing whether he could remember a sentence spoken by the 
vicar. Nobody could. For indeed that individual's 
sermons were constructed on that economic principle, that 
he might safely preach next Sunday to any congregation 
the sermon he had preached to it last Sunday; and not a 
soul would know a word of it. 
' But back, my devious muse, to whence you deviated. 



Account of Things learned in them. $j 

All this came of saying that when two men stand together 
on the same hill-top, each has the selfsame prospect before 
him. Any difference in the prospect actually appre- 
hended, comes of the different eyes with which they see 
it 5 for there is just the very same thing for each to see. 
But though the prospect of space is the same to the men 
who stand together in space, how different is the prospect 
of time to the men who stand together in time ! Stand- 
ing here, on this third of November, how different the 
view that spreads before the man of thirty-five, from the 
view that spreads before the man of sixty-five ! You 
look round, and you see tolerably distinctly a period of a 
little more than twenty years : beyond that limit there 
are special events looming through the mist of years ; 
mountain tops rising above the tide of time. But think, 
to what vast recesses his view penetrates, who remembers 
a career of more than fifty years. What a tremendous 
deal he has come through ! Your own briefer course has 
battered you not a little : is it not wonderful to see how 
well your friend is looking after his long way ? The old 
heart has kept beating away all that time ; the teeth have 
eaten (no wonder some of them are gone) : the eyes have 
read, the hands have written ! It is a wonderful thought. 
And it is only gradually, and through the process of years, 
that you fully take it in. At five and twenty, you fancied 
you knew everything : you could not see why your views 
and opinions might not be received as just as good as 
those of a man of twice your age. At five and thirty, if 
you have confidence in a man of sixty-five as a wise and 



38 Concerning Ten Years : with some 

good man, there is hardly any opinion of your own that 
you would not feel shaken if he expressed to you his 
deliberate disapproval of it. For you have found that 
opinions and beliefs ripen into maturity, just as grain and 
fruits do, through time ; and only through time. And 
the best-weighed belief of the ablest man in middle age 
can no more be esteemed as a mature belief, than the 
green corn of July (beautiful as the crop and the season 
may be) can be ranked as ripened grain. As sure as the 
yellow ears of September are the ripe wheat, the con- 
sidered and conscientious convictions of a wise and good 
man above sixty are the sound and mature ones. And if 
you be wise and good, you will come to these in the end. 
You know, too, whether there ever were truer words 
said than these : that the way to many opinions and 
beliefs is through their opposites. Have you not, in 
several things, got to just the opposite pole of thought 
and feeling from that which you held ten years since? 
As the tastes in food and drink, which last longest, are 
the tastes for things which at the first you disliked . as the 
music which keeps its hold on you year after year, is the 
music which at first hearing did not especially strike you, 
while the lively pretty air that took your ear at first 
speedily palls and wearies : so is it with our beliefs in 
a hundred ways. The beliefs which we hold by, and 
which we never will let go but with life, are those we 
arrived at through the teaching and maturing of years : 
while the opinions we held so feverishly and uttered so 
passionately in the blood-heat season of youth, are gone 






Account of Things learned in them. 39 

for ever : are looked back upon with wonder, sorrow, 
shame. 

Thus, as we grow older, we lose independence of char- 
acter. We grow more disposed to enlist under a banner, 
and to follow a leader. Is it not true, men in middle 
age, that in those past ten years you have parted with a 
great part of that confidence in yourselves by which clever 
young lads irritate their parents, and the less thoughtful 
and sympathetic of their seniors in active life ? For my- 
self, I confess I am cowed by the moral weight of a good 
and wise man with gray hairs : I should say rather white 
hairs, for our hairs, my old companions, in so far as we 
have any left, are fast growing gray. I know two or 
three men in my own profession, from whom if I found 
I differed on any one of a large class of questions, I should 
feel my confidence in my opinion shaken : I should re- 
consider the grounds on which I hold it : I should soon 
land in the conclusion that I had been wrong. I don't 
say that in all matters I should be so guided by even 
them. And a thing which helps a little to reassure me, 
is, that I find these good and wise men sometimes seriously 
disagreeing among themselves. But now that I have got 
a little experience myself, and so know what it is worth, 
I venerate those who have got so much of it. It is your 
young fellow without a penny who talks slightingly of 
worldly wealth : when a man has made his first thousand 
pounds, he has learned better. It is so, in a nobler sense 
and way, with experience. You don't understand its 
value, till you come to possess a little of it. Then you 



40 Concerning Ten Years : with some 

duly respect those who have a great deal more of it. And 
the upshot isj that while clever men of twenty-five do 
generally contemn their seniors, sensible men of thirty-five 
are apt to be very much led by their seniors. You come, 
gradually, to see good reason for many customs and 
observances, which you used to laugh at. For most 
things your fathers habitually did, you gradually come to 
see good reason. Let me relate the experience of my 
friend Smith. ee My venerable father," said he, " kept 
up for nearly fifty years a certain ancient hospitable usage. 
In my early manhood I used to laugh at it, once a year 
as it occurred. I thought it absurd : and no statement 
of the pros and cons would have made me think it other- 
wise. But that good man did not argue with me. He 
bided his time. And now I have come to see that he 
was right : and I mean to take up that ancient custom 
and maintain it loyally. Of course my boy will laugh at 
me by-and-bye." 

Let me sum up all this by uttering a prediction in the 
ears of my younger readers. They won't believe it : but 
never mind. 

If you think almost any old usage absurd and ridiculous, 
some day you will know that it was not absurd or ridicu- 
lous. If your father was a wise and good man ; and if 
he maintained some opinion or custom you thought pre- 
posterous; some day you will come round to hold the 
like opinion yourself, and to maintain the like usage. 

It does not of necessity follow that the usage or opinion 
was right ; but you will gradually grow into thinking it so. 






Accoimt of Things learned in them. 4 1 

A thing into which you have doubtless got an insight 
in these past ten years, is the rationale of the well-known 
fact, that most people prefer their own ways, habits, and 
possessions (if the possessions be good at all) ; and not 
merely like all these best, but think them absolutely the 
best. Very naturally, we make our own way the standard. 
It is the first meridian ; and we measure the distances by 
which other things depart from it ; and we are too ready 
to conclude that by just so much they have departed from 
what is right. If ours be the plumb-line, of course all 
things that do not square with it must be off the perpen- 
dicular. And those of us who have travelled a little in 
foreign countries, but who have not travelled long enough 
to feel at home in them, know how curious a feeling it is, 
when we find that every little thing is so different there 
from the corresponding thing here. It is but that Nature 
loves variety : and so suggests varied ways to the various 
races of men. But we are ready to attribute it all to 
some strange perversity in the moral nature of the people : 
some malignant preference of evil to good, done just to 
spite us. And you may possibly have seen proof of the 
universal love and popularity which the Briton has gained 
for himself in certain countries of Europe by the strong 
manifestation of that belief ; and by despising, as unques- 
tionably wrong and bad, whatever he has not seen before. 
It is indeed a curious thing to remark how strong is the 
craving for variety in human nature : how each man has 
his own little ways; and sternly refuses to let these be 
appointed for him by another, thinking- the other's little 



42 Concerning Ten Years : with some 

ways absurd and evil. It annoys one, when your place 
in life is given up by you and occupied by another, to see 
how immediately your successor sweeps away the little 
arrangements you had brought (as you fancied) to per- 
fection, and inaugurates a new system of his own. If 
you, being a clergyman, are preferred to another living : 
and if after your former charge is filled you come back 
to visit your successor, you will find that, in spite of a 
firm determination to like him, there are little irritating 
circumstances that will provoke you. In the vestry, you 
will find the looking-glass at which you used to tie on 
your bands hung in a different place : you will find the 
position of chairs and tables altered : if you were wont to 
put on your bands first and then your cassock, your suc- 
cessor will put on his cassock first and then his bands : if 
your way was to cultivate entire silence for a few minutes 
before going into church to begin the service, you will 
find your successor talking away to the last, and casting 
back a cheerful smile on you as he walks out of that 
apartment in his canonicals. And entering the church, 
what a turn over there will be ! New psalms and hymns 
are now sung to tunes unknown to you. The choir occu- 
pies different seats. The pulpit has been heightened or 
lowered : it has been covered afresh with purple velvet, 
and the dear old crimson you loved has gone : everything 
looks different. And even in the enforced uniformity of 
a service fixed by law (and such may all services ever be !) 
there is scope afforded for fifty little changes, all of which 
you think for the worse, all of which your friend thinks 






Account of Things learned in them. 43 

for the better. Even the Lord's Prayer he will not say 
as you used to do. He places the emphasis differently ; 
and (as you think) utters it remarkably ill. As for the 
parsonage and its belongings, let me not speak of that. 
The furniture in what was your study is vilely arranged. 
How could any sane man have his writing-table set in 
that corner, when yon (after long thought) had found the 
precise spot where such a table ought to stand, and when 
you told the man so ? Then as for the garden, what per- 
versity made potatoes be put where your wife had flowers, 
and flowers where every man of common sense would 
have had potatoes ? The trees and shrubs are all altered : 
the features of the dear old spot are changed : the place, 
in fact, is spoiled ! 

Ah, my friend, how wrong you are in thinking all 
this ! It is just that your way pleases you ; and your 
successor's way pleases your successor. And that which 
pleases a human being best, is the best thing for the 
human being. So, when your successor walks you about 
the well-remembered walks, and shows you eagerly what 
vast improvements he has made, he is showing a lack of 
philosophic discernment. And when you sulkily follow 
him, throwing cold water on his enthusiasm, and refusing 
to be pleased with anything, you are testifying your lack 
of philosophic discernment too. Each little change he has 
made is a little pin he has stuck into you. What more 
absurd, you think, than taking away that looking-glass in 
the vestry from the place it held so long ! How ill-chosen 
those psalms, and how vulgar and unecclesiastical the 



44 Concerning Ten Years ; with some 

music ! How horribly he says the Lord's Prayer : and 
what a mess he has made of the house and the garden 
and shrubbery ! There, even the entrance gate was 
green, and he has gone and painted it white. What a 
perverse, intractable man he is, always wanting in every 
little thing his own way ! 

And pray, what do you want now ? Just your own 
way. Is it not fair that your friend should have his 
belongings in the way in which they best please him ? 
They are not yours now : and if you cannot be more 
reasonable and amiable, you had better not come back 
and see them any more. If you cannot, without being 
jarred and put out of joint, bear to see little varia- 
tions from the use you had established, then stay 
away from the place where you are quite sure to see 
them. 

Now all this is what a young fellow cannot understand. 
You arrive at it not through reasoning ; but by the process 
of the mellowing years. 

I learned something of this in autumn, at the seaside. 
In a certain great city, I bought a little sheaf of walking 
sticks, of yellow varnished oak. These I conveyed by 
land and sea, till they reached the spot where they were 
to be allocated among the individuals who were to use 
them. One stick, very large, unwieldy, and uncomfort- 
able, fell to myself. It had a great thick handle, crooked, 
and set on at a most awkward angle. I found it at first 
very uncomfortable to walk with. But in a few days my 
hand got accustomed to it, and I came to like the stick 



Account of Things learned in them. 45 

very much. To others, unaccustomed to it, it remained 
awkward as before. 

That oak stick taught me a lesson 5 and I gratefully 
record my obligation to it. The lesson was : Not to be 
angry with people for preferring their own ways 5 and for 
declining to let you drive them into other ways which are 
perhaps absolutely better. For these persons may have 
grown so accustomed to the old ways, that the old ways 
are best to them, if not best in themselves, or in the 
judgment of a disinterested spectator. Preference is a 
relation between us and the things preferred ; the result 
of use. Let people be happy in their own way. My 
yellow stick, the worst possible to many, is truly the best 
to me. Now I owe this to it : that it has cast a certain 
dignity about many little habits, and oddities of manner, 
in various good men, at which in my thoughtless ignor- 
ance I was ready to laugh. Especially it has taught me to 
regard with respect the little ways, if not in themselves 
offensive, of old people. It would be a terrible thing to 
them to change the ancient way. So, if it make them 
happy, let them speak oiventulation, of Levvyawthan, and 
of Kapper-nawm : let them look for a long time at the 
outside of their letters, wondering from whom they came, 
and don't you petulantly tell them that the best way to 
ascertain that fact is to open the letter : let them twirl 
their thumbs, and enjoy the like innocent pleasures : it 
would be terrible and cruel to push them out of the dear 
old ways. The old familiar faces may not be the prettiest 
faces j but they are the faces we like best to see. It is 



46 Concerning Ten Years : with some 

these little knobs and knots which made the walking-stick 
of life fit the aged hand : and to cut these off would put 
the whole thing out of gear. 

So I prize the stick, already much named. I would 
not willingly part with it. It has taught me much. 

Let the following words of wisdom be added. It is a 
good thing to have things which other people don't like. 
For in a little while, you will come to like them just as 
heartily as if they were universal favourites : and two 
good effects will follow : 

I. People won't steal them from you : 

II. People won't hate you for having them. 

If you had an umbrella which the world at large 
esteemed as hideous, but which to yourself seemed beau- 
tiful, how secure your tenure of that umbrella would be ! 
How much more likely it is that you will get a lost thing 
returned to you, if you are able to advertise that it is of 
no use to anyone but the owner ! Such is that great 
awkward stick, wherewith I walked about at the seaside 
in autumn. I have tamed the unwieldy beast, and made 
it useful to myself ; but it would be a long while before 
it would be of any use to any other mortal. 

And further, when people see you walking with the 
hideous umbrella, or with the unwieldy stick, they won't 
know how happy you are with them : and instead of 
envying you, hating you, and vilifying you, they will 
sympathise with you and be sorry for you. The average 
human being is willing to do a good turn to the man 
whom he esteems as placed on a very inferior level to 



Account of Things learned in them. 47 

himself, or whom he regards as a well-meaning odd crea- 
ture. Now your hideous umbrella may gain you that 
estimation, with the attendant advantages. It will shield 
you from the evil eye of envy, hatred, and malice., And 
in this world that is something. 

Besides, if you are a wise man, you will not think a bit 
the less of any of your possessions, because stupid people 
who have no intuition of great truths think it worthless or 
ugly. You know better. You have a secret treasure 3 
secret, though you daily place it before many eyes. Be- 
cause a hundred donkeys had stumbled over a big stone 
in the road, and only kicked it away in wrath, would that 
make its value less to you, when you had picked it up and 
found it was a mass of solid gold ? And though ten 
thousand men cannot see in your big umbrella what you 
see, you see it all the same. 

Willingly would the writer expatiate on this subject at 
great length. There is a vast deal more to be said about 
it. But I forbear. 

Another thing which my readers and I have learned 
in these departed years is this. 

When you have a great many things to do, don't lose 
time and perplex yourself by thinking in what order you 
shall do them. Begin anywhere : take up just the first 
thing that comes to hand, and do it. Then do the next 
that occurs : push on : and so you will come to an end. 
And you may possibly be surprised to find how soon you 
have succeeded in mowing down that great array. When 



48 Concerning Ten Years ; with some 

you return home, after being three days absent, during 
which your letters were not sent after you, you will find 
accumulated on your study table (let us say) fifty letters. 
For you are not like a poor unfortunate archbishop, who 
has to write two hundred letters in four days. On read- 
ing your letters, you find that forty need to be answered. 
After you have washed, and had a cup of strong tea, go 
and sit down at your writing-table. Never mind the 
order in which your letters came, or the order of their 
importance. All are to be answered. Take the first that 
comes to your hand ; answer it in the fewest possible 
words : lay your letters on a handy table (let us suppose) 
behind you ; and throw the answered document into the 
waste-paper basket by your side. Treat the next letter in 
the same way, and it will surprise you to find how soon 
you will reach the last. If there be one or two letters 
whose answers need longer thought, and larger space, lay 
them aside till next morning. But this principle, as to 
the way of going at the many letters to be answered, 
holds good of all work. No doubt, sometimes there are 
things entitled to come first ; but with the common things 
that spring up every day, and specially with those that 
accumulate when you have been three or four da3 r s absent 
from home in your busy season, just begin anywhere : go 
on steadily : and so shall you reach the end. 

If you come down in the morning of any day, and find 
that the post has brought an unusual number of letters 
and other documents, needing care and thought and work: 
and if further on looking at your record of engagements 



Account of Things learned in them. 49 

you find that there is a great number of things to be done 
on that day, and all inevitable without gross neglect : here 
is a good plan. Make a list of the things you are to do 
that day. Those to be done indoors do in any order. 
As for the things to be done out of doors, let them be 
written on a separate piece of paper ; and then number 
them in the order in which they can most easily be done, 
avoiding needless retracing of the same ground. And 
I venture to predict, that though the day's work may 
be hard and long, you will get through it wonderfully. 
You may not, indeed, clear your list : though perhaps 
you may : but you will make a great hole in it. And 
you will not lose energy in paralysing perplexity : you 
will not be working with half a will, and with the feeling 
you should be doing something else : as many people are 
doing, through all their working time. 

I have said it before, but I wish to say it again, that 
pen ink and paper are the great clearers up of most 
worried and overdriven minds. If a man have a vague 
idea that he has a tremendous number and variety of 
things to do : or that he has a tremendous number and 
variety of worries and annoyances gnawing the enjoy- 
ment out of his life 3 let him sit down and write a list on 
one sheet of paper of all the things he has to do : and on 
another sheet of all his worries. Well, the lists may not 
be short : but I venture to say they will be shorter than 
the man expected. And further, the killing thing, the 
vague sense of indefinite number and magnitude, will be 
gone. Oh, it is such a blessing fairly to see the size 



50 Concerning Ten Years ; with some 

and shape of anything we are afraid of ! Nobody is ever 
very much afraid of anything whose shape and size he 
thoroughly knows. It is the indistinctness, the undefined 
shape where shape is none, that has ever made ghosts so 
terrible. If Milton had given an exact account of his 
Satan's form and dimensions, instead of writing of some- 
thing "long and large," that " lay floating many a rood," 
we should not have the shuddering sense of something 
fearful which we get from the famous lines now. 

My friend Smith, only yesterday, told me the following 
facts. On Sunday he preached twice, to a very large 
congregation. This put him into a somewhat feverish 
state. On Sunday evening, glancing at his record of en- 
gagements for Monday, he found that they were very 
many ; and some rather trying and perplexing and even 
painful. Then in addition, he felt the ceaseless sense ot 
pressure, and of work that never can be overtaken as one 
desires, peculiar to diligent clergymen in parishes where 
the population is numbered by thousands 5 and felt by such 
even where the population is numbered only by hundreds. 
Now Smith has so severe ideas as to the observance of the 
Lord's day, that he would not make a list on Sunday night 
before going to bed of what he had to think of and do next 
day. The result was, that he did not fall asleep till past 
five in the morning 5 and that he came down next day as 
oppressed and perplexed as mortal could be. Then he 
made his list, feeling very bewildered and confused. But 
he told me that though it took him upon that day just as 
hard pushing as his strength was equal to, from half-past 






Account of Things learned in them. 5 1 

nine in the morning till half-past twelve next morning 
(allowing an hour's rest at dinner), to overtake what he 
had to do j yet he did overtake it all: and at 12.30 a.m. 
sat down in an easy chair before the fire, feeling very 
fagged and very thankful : holding all his work in clearly 
defined perspective. Now, it was the want of clearness 
of view arising from the absence of the salutary and bene- 
ficial written list, that gave him the sleepless night, and the 
awful sense of worry on Monday morning. I rather think 
that hereafter my friend will esteem the preparation of his 
list even on Sunday evening (when needful) as a " work 
of necessity and mercy." 

A thing which in middle age we come to see a good 
deal of, is what may be called Petty Diplomacy. Have 
you not found that there is a rooted idea in many minds 
that it would argue simplicity and want of astuteness, to 
take the straight and obvious way to the end you want 
to reach ; and that the deep thing, the experienced- 
looking thing, is to approach your end by a circuitous 
course, round corners ? All my respect for my seniors, I 
confess, cannot reconcile me to this. It appears to me 
that the notion does generally arise from silliness 5 and 
sometimes from moral obliquity. 

I remember, when I was a boy, walking with a certain 
old gentleman in the Regent's Park. The old gentleman 
and I agreed that it would be desirable and pleasant to 
ascend Primrose Hill. We determined thitherward to 
direct our unequal steps. Accordingly, we proceeded to 



5 2 Concerning Ten Years : with some 

walk away in quite a different direction. The old gentle- 
man thought this was deep. He did not know the way- 
out of the Park to the Hill 3 but he concluded that the 
wise thing would be to go by a way that did not seem the 
way j and to approach the height diplomatically. With 
the directness of aim which characterises boyhood, I 
pointed out the hill to him, and suggested we had better 
follow the path that led straight to it. The old gentleman, 
under protest, and hoping to put me in the wrong, agreed 
to follow that path : and of course, it led straight to the 
place we wanted. The old gentleman's experience of 
life had led him to the belief that the straightforward way 
to every end, physical or moral, was not likely to be the 
successful way. Now, of course we all know, there are 
apparent short-cuts, which lead you a great way round : 
and apparent circuitous courses which take you straight to 
what you want to reach. But these are exceptional cases. 
And I believe that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, 
petty diplomacy is as needless, as it is irritating to all 
candid minds. If this essay were not so long already, I 
should like to say a great deal more on this matter : and 
to give some account of the means by which my very slight 
acquaintances Mr Dodger, Mr Trickyman, and old Dr 
Deepe, fancy they succeed in managing their fellow- 
creatures. Meantime I forbear : these things must wait 
another day. But just at present I desire to record, that I 
have seen more affectation of diplomatic wiles and reserve, 
in men of no earthly standing, engaged in measures for 
which not one man in a thousand of the population of 



Account of Things learned in them, 53 

Britain cares a brass farthing, or filling up vacant places 
which would not by their emoluments tempt a respectable 
butler, than I believe to exist in cabinet, ministers ; and 
than I know to exist in the very limited number of 
cabinet ministers with whom I have conversed. Indeed 
the most wily diplomatist ever I knew was an old woman 
who pervaded a certain tract of country, providing female 
servants for the inferior houses therein. Not Lord Bur- 
leigh, with that significant shake of the head, — not 
Talleyrand, who from his serene elevation looked down 
on an individual we all know, calling him Palmerston pour 
rire } — could equal that awful woman. The deep strata- 
gems by which she proposed to attain the simplest ends, 
— the astonishment with which she heard a proposal to 
ascertain what a human being's feelings towards a certain 
situation were, by the obvious means of asking the human 
being, — the solemn and awe-stricken voice in which she 
said vi, Ah, that would never do," — all these things are 
among the cherished remembrances of my youth. 

But let us cease, my devious muse. My readers will 
not stand any more of this. In a subsequent chapter the 
subject shall be resumed j and carried on at the most 
wearisome length. Of that you may be well assured. I 
have not got more than half way through my relation of 
the gains of departed years. 



CHAPTER III. 
THE REST OF IT. 

WHENEVER any preacher begins his sermon by 
saying, that before proceeding to his proper sub- 
ject he will recapitulate what he said upon a former 
occasion, the effect on the writer's attention is most para- 
lysing. Probably the effect on the attention of most 
human beings is the like. 

Therefore, I make no reference to that very long essay 
which you may have read in former pages of this volume, 
under the title Concerning Ten Years • with some Account 
of Things learned in them, beyond saying that, after writ- 
ing a certain portion of that document, the belief became 
forcibly impressed on me, that nobody could be expected 
to read any more of it. Thereupon I stopped, promising 
to continue that essay at another time : and here is the 
rest of it. I remark that American editors call the rest 
of a book, essay, or the like, the balance of it. But this 
chapter will not in any degree balance the former one 5 
because that was very long, and this will be very short. 

If yon please, you may ascertain, by turning back to it, 
what was the matter treated in the last paragraph of the 



The Rest of it. 55 

former essay. But not from me shall you learn what it 
was. 

My friend Smith recently related to me an incident of 
his boyhood, which I am now to relate to you. On a 
certain occasion, he did for the first time in his recollec- 
tion, practise what may be called the art of Petty Diplo- 
macy. He and certain other boys of a certain school, 
competed for a prize offered by the master to the boy 
who could, with chiefest oratorical effect, repeat the 
famous poem of The Battle of Hohenlinden. The contest 
being over, a little man named Styles was declared to 
have done best 5 Smith was second. Accordingly Styles 
was to receive the higher prize ; Smith the inferior. The 
prizes consisted of little books illustrated with pictures. 
The pictures in one were printed in bright colours j those 
of the other were in plain black and white. The master 
of the school presented the two books to the observation 
of Styles, telling him to take his choice. Around stood 
the boys of the school intently regarding. Then Smith, 
eager to get the coloured book, loudly expressed his 
admiration for the other 5 declaring it to be much the 
better of the two. Thus Smith hoped to induce Styles 
to choose it, and leave the coloured one for himself. 
Smith records that his primary experience of diplomatic 
action was discouraging. For Styles at once seized the 
bright-coloured book, and then said to Smith, " Oh, how 
nice that you like the other best : for you shall have it. 
And I like this one best ! " 

We have all seen a great deal of that kind of thing. 



56 The Rest of it. 

Sometimes it is successful, sometimes not. It is gratifying 
to one to find petty diplomacy fail ; — to discern that it does 
not reach the end designed ; that it is seen through ; and 
only infuriates those whom it desired to lead unconsciously 
by the nose. To escape contempt, it is essential that 
petty diplomacy succeed. Success is the test with it as 
well as with treason. Smith told me that in after life he 
had occasion to converse with Mr Deepe, as to a vacant 
office. Mr Deepe declared himself very anxious that 
Styles should have it. "Then," says Smith, "of course 
you will propose Styles for it." Deepe (it should be 
said) was one of the electoral college, with whom the 
filling up of that office lay. " Oh, no," said Deepe, with 
a look of great penetration and astuteness. " There is a 
way of doing these things. I shall propose Jones for it. 
I know Jones will refuse it : and this will smooth the 
way to Styles getting it." Let us trust that Mr Deepe 
generally fails in attaining the ends he seeks in this manly 
fashion. And when a man comes to be known for a 
diplomatist who prides himself on his tact in managing 
people, his chance of success in managing people becomes 
small. I have no firmer belief than that straight-forward 
honesty is in the long run the most efficient means of 
inducing reasonable people to do a reasonable thing. 

Yet let me confess, I have occasionally felt, for a very 
short time, a certain measure of awe in the presence of a 
small diplomatist. One's own simple idea, that the 
straight path to any end is the best one, and that you had 
just as well talk out what you think and feel as talk out 






The Rest of it. 57 

something quite different, is abashed in the presence of 
what seems a greater depth and reach of mind. Gradu- 
ally, however, you feel that to compass small ends by a 
succession of shabby tricks, is a very poor thing ; and even 
if honesty be not the best policy, it is unquestionable that 
honesty is the thing for an honest man. 

The recollection of the air of deep mystery and un- 
fathomable policy one has seen in extremely small men, 
doing extremely small things, suggests a recollection of 
the awful majesty of demeanour one has seen assumed by 
the like extremely small men : likewise of the wonderful 
way in which many rational people are overborne and 
imposed upon by a dignity of demeanour which to others 
is suggestive merely of Mr Carlyle's windbag, or of the 
proverbial beggar on horseback. There is something 
annoying and irritating in witnessing this toadyism of 
infinitesimally small men ; whose airs, one would say, 
could excite no feeling save a mingled one of amusement 
and contempt. You may occasionally hear intelligent 
men speak of such, as though they were the mightiest of 
the earth. Have not I heard one of the most amiable of 
men declare that Dr Log was a far greater man than 
Lord Macaulay ? It is as though a butcher's boy, whose 
horse trots the fastest of all the horses in Little Pedlington, 
should be quite sure that the Queen had often expressed 
her admiration for that fast-trotting though broken-kneed 
nag. My friend Brown tells me that once on a time a 
really clever friend, who had narrowed his mind by undue 
concentration of it on a region of very small interests, and 



58 The Rest of it. 

by setting before himself a deplorably petty end of ambi- 
tion, came to call for him. Brown was busy at his desk, 
and asked his friend to wait for a minute. His friend 
took up from the table that volume, bound in red, 
called the Men of the Time ; and eagerly sought for the 
names of seven or eight individuals whom he esteemed 
as great. Not one of them was there. The friend sat 
down and gasped 5 and manifestly felt the earth crumbling 
away beneath him. Yet I have no doubt all this did him 
good. 

Now, it is bad to toady even a duke, who represents a 
grand old lineage, and whose personality is surrounded by 
a crowd of stirring associations. It is bad to toady even 
an archbishop, who is perhaps a very great man, and 
assuredly a very lucky man. At the worst, the arch- 
bishop is to be looked at with the like interest to that 
with which you look at the man who has drawn the 
thirty thousand pound prize in a lottery. But it is 
infinitely more wretched, degrading, and disgusting to 
toady Dr Bumptious or Professor Donkey. Yet you may 
have seen, no one can tell why, such mortals flattered, 
caressed, and petted like spoiled children, though they 
never did any good to any one but themselves in all their 
days. Let me add, that toadyism is never so offensive 
as when it is flavoured with religious language. Then it 
becomes the most hateful of cant. Thus it was when a 
hoary reprobate who had served the devil diligently as 
long as he had strength to serve anybody at all, having 
professed some penitence in the last hours of life (\\ hich 



The Rest of it. 59 

penitence did not prompt him to make any amends for 
the wicked things he had done), was greasily held forth 
from a certain pulpit as a noble Christian character. 
Toadyism never reached a height more revolting than 
when it led Bishop Porteus to declare that George II. 
was removed to heaven because he was too good for 
earth ; unless indeed where it says something analogous 
concerning some respectable tradesman or sharp attorney. 
Then (let me confess), I hold it worse. To profess great 
admiration of the height and grandeur of a mole-hill, is a 
more offensive thing than to profess great admiration for 
Mont Blanc : even if you ascribe to Mont Blanc the 
qualities in which it is especially deficient. 

Do you know this feeling? Let me speak to very 
busy men. 

To have been excessively over-driven for many weeks -, 
pressed by a host of cares, toils, worries ; and then almost 
suddenly to get to the end of them, and enter on a little 
time of relief and rest j yet not to be able to feel relieved 
and restful ? You know that if you have been struggling 
through the dense underwood of a forest, the moment 
you emerge from the wood into an open glade, you feel 
you are free from the entanglement. Likewise if you 
pass through a railway tunnel, the instant you get out of 
the dark you get into the light. But after you have got 
out of the moral tunnel, you often feel yourself surrounded 
by its darkness just as much as when passing through it. 
After escaping from the moral underwood, from the 



60 The Rest of it. 

briars, nettles, and elastic branches that come with un- 
friendly whack against your face, you feel all these little 
inconveniences plague you as much as ever. Do you 
know this ? 

Sometimes, even to find that you have, for the time, 
very little to do, will not relieve you from an oppressed 
sense that you have a great deal to do. That is, if you 
have really been working very hard for a long time. As 
amputation of a leg will not keep you from feeling pain 
in it, so though you have no work, you will feel the pres- 
sure and worry of work that is gone. In my childhood, 
in a certain little village in a fair country not seen for 
many years, I knew a tailor, an excellent man. Who 
can forget the man that made his first jacket > That 
good man had lost a leg. I remember the awe with 
which I have heard him say that he felt all his toes just 
as plainly as when he had them, years after the limb to 
which they belonged had been taken off. It was only 
by looking during the day, and by touch during the 
night, that he often assured himself that the limb was 
not there. 

Don't be sure that you really are very busy, merely 
because you feel very busy. Make a list of the things 
you have to do ; of the things you have done in the 
last week or month. Account for your time, and see 
what you have made of it. And if what you have done 
looks much when it is written fairly down, you may be 
well assured that it was a very great deal when you were 
actually doing it. Perhaps you may suddenly discover 






The Rest of it. 6 1 

that you have indeed been very idle though you fancied 
yourself very diligent. Some men get into the way of 
saying they are terribly busy, just as the man in the 
Spectator, though perfectly well, got somehow into the 
way of always saying he was sick. 

Have you learned the great Fact, of the Superiority of 
Inferior Things ? I mean the Fact, that you get more 
enjoyment out of these than out of things vastly better. 

My friend Smith, in the past autumn, went to the sea- 
side with his children. He had provided for their use a 
nicely-rigged little yacht (that is, a yacht of two feet in 
length) -, likewise a little steam-ship, which by clockwork 
was impelled with wonderful speed. He had fancied that 
an enduring source of interest for the children was pro- 
vided in those really pretty toys. But to his mortification, 
after a day or two the children cast these aside, not caring 
a bit for them ; and found unfailing pleasure in two great 
blocks of wood, amorphous in form, which you would not 
have guessed to be ships unless you had been several times 
told so. Day after day, these blocks were invested with 
an intricate combination of strings and sticks, representing 
rigging. Day by day were the heads of that little house- 
hold brought forcibly to behold and admire the great 
works of naval art. The same friend told me that his 
little boy had received as a birthday present, a very hand- 
some railway train, of no small size. There were engine 
and tender, and four or five carriages : skilfully were the 
carriages coupled each to each ; graceful were the circles 



62 The Rest of it. 

in which that train could run j exciting was the sound of 
its many wheels. But the enjoyment of that artistic toy 
speedily palled, and it was supplanted by another railway 
train, in which the forms of engine and carriages were 
rendered in wooden bricks, skilfully built up. The re- 
semblance to real life was remote ; and the train could 
be moved only by laborious management. 

It is a great comfort to the majority of mankind to 
reflect that inferior things are in truth superior. If a 
duke with a palace or a castle gains the magnificent, he 
loses the snug. And to an average mind there is more 
real enjoyment in the snug than in the magnificent. You 
look at the magnificent for a little while, and then walk 
away from it with expressions of admiration j with the 
snug you are content to associate day by day. You could 
not choose for a familiar friend a man twenty feet high. 
You could not sit down by the evening fireside and read 
Fraser in a gallery two hundred feet long. I know a 
man who has an enthusiastic love for church architecture. 
It pleased Providence to give him for his own a very plain 
church. After a while, an inexpensive internal improve- 
ment was made upon the east end of that edifice at the 
cost of not very many scores of pounds sterling, which 
was successful in greatly elevating the character of the 
entire interior. What an amount of real hearty enjoy- 
ment my friend got out of this little thing ! Yes, more 
than many a man gets out of a church which leaves no- 
thing to be desired 5 more than he himself would have 
got out of that, if it had pleased God to give it to him. 



The Rest of it. 63 

When the young barrister, Walter Scott, devised and 
erected a little rustic gateway at his country cottage, and 
went out after dark with his wife, with a lantern, and 
surveyed it with great satisfaction and pride, don't you 
see that the pleasure he derived from that small matter 
was at least as keen as ever he derived from the grander 
decorations of Abbotsford ? And the man of simple and 
moderate tastes, who has a hundred square yards of velvety 
grass environed by warm evergreens, and fragrant in early 
summer with two lilacs and one hawthorn, may walk up 
and down a gravelled path, not so long as a quarter-deck, 
and enjoy his domain more keenly than a peer enjoys his 
park of six miles in circumference, which is so very big 
that one never can have a really familiar acquaintance 
with it all. There can be no doubt that very diligent 
cultivation bestowed on a very little bit of this earth will 
draw forth from it a most unusual crop of vegetables. 
So will prolonged and earnest contemplation of a little 
expanse of grass draw from it an incalculable amount of 
enjoyment. I know a man, the incumbent of a Scotch 
country parish, whose church you would on a cursory 
inspection take to be a little shabby barn, with a belfry at 
one end of it. After the longest inspection, indeed, you 
could never persuade yourself that it looked like a church. 
Yet the man whose duty it was to conduct the worship 
of that building, regarded it with a satisfaction with which 
I doubt if Dean Stanley looks at Westminster Abbey. In 
the gable of that shabby church there was a really beau- 
tiful Norman door. And if you train yourself to take all 



64 The Rest of it. 

your friends to see a Norman door 5 and if, being alone, 
you often sit down on a gravestone and look at it ; it is 
amazing what a deal you will get out of that door, espe- 
cially if it be the only door within miles at which it is 
conceivable that a lover of architecture would look twice. 
However much the Dean of Westminster may admire 
some one door in the great Abbey, he cannot bestow 
upon it sufficiently prolonged and intent consideration to 
draw forth all its latent power of pleasing. For there are 
a hundred other things there equally worth looking at, 
and in such a case you do but skim the enjoyment which 
any object yields you ; you cannot drink it all in. 

There is a happy compensation in all this. For as most 
people must put up with inferior things, it is comfortable 
to think that inferior things are in fact superior. There is 
a racy aroma, a peculiarly sapid twang about little things 
and few things, which great things and many things want. 

There are facts which, though existent, need manipu- 
lation to make them apparent. When you were a little 
boy, and saw a carpenter planing a piece of mahogany, 
don't you remember how disappointed you were to see 
how very colourless the wood looked ? There was no 
appearance at all of the rich, deep colour you had been 
accustomed to associate with that wood. To your friend, 
the carpenter, you expressed your mortification : saying, 
that in what looked like a piece of dark deal, there was 
no vestige of the character and markings of mahogany 
at all. But your friend told you these things were all 
there, though they were not yet made apparent. Let 



The Rest of it. 6 



that wood be oiled and rubbed, and the latent nature 
will come out. The fact will become manifest. 

Are there not some moral facts which need a little 
handling to make us aware of them? It seems to me 
that the peculiar handling which is needful to make us 
feel some things is to say we feel them. If you want 
really to enjoy your holiday rest, be sure you frequently 
say how much you are enjoying it) for if you don't say 
so, perhaps you won't. Half the pleasure of a fine, crisp, 
frosty day consists in telling people how enjoyable it is. 
The satisfaction was in your mind latent : it is brought 
out by talking of it as the markings of mahogany are 
brought out by oil and rubbing. A person who fre- 
quently tells the most groundless story comes at last to 
believe it himself. George IV., one would say, must have 
come really to believe that he led the decisive charge at 
Waterloo, when he attained the sublime impudence of 
declaring that he did so to the Duke of Wellington. So 
singular is the reflective power of assertion upon belief. 
If you go out upon a raw, gloomy day, and resolutely 
declare to a number of people that it is fine, cheerful, 
winter weather, you may ultimately persuade yourself 
that it is so. Not always indeed. Sometimes the making 
strong declarations of what a man does not really feel to 
be true, serves only to make him feel himself a more 
wretched impostor. "We all know several people who are 
constantly telling us things to their own advantage, just 
because they know they are not facts, but wish us to 
think them so- 

E 



66 The Rest of it. 

Is this true ? 

Confidence that you are taking the right way to do a 
thing tends greatly to make the way you are taking the 
right one. Did you ever hastily put a key into a lock and 
find it would not go in, or would not turn round ? Then 
you thought it must be the wrong key ; and felt that you 
could not open the lock with it though you tried several 
times. But you took the key out and looked at it. You 
saw it was the right key after all. Now you tried con- 
fidently, and succeeded at once. In went the key 
smoothly : back went the bolt. 

Are there not analogies in life ? Is not half the battle 
there, to go at things confidently — sure that you are taking 
the right course ? A man who thinks he is sure to fail, is 
sure to fail. All attempts that have been made to reason 
sailors out of their superstitions, as to unlucky days of sail- 
ing and the like, have resulted only in confirming their 
superstitions ; for the men who sailed on a Friday, in a 
ship launched on a Friday, and called The Friday by a too 
intelligent owner, went in the firm belief that they were 
doomed men. You can see how, in times of urgent peril, 
this conviction would utterly paralyse them ; and so one 
does not wonder that the ship never was heard of any 
more. If you think it to be the wrong key, you cannot 
open the lock with it 3 though, in fact, it is the right key. 
If you sail away in the belief that you are knocking 
your head against the whole universe, you are nearly as 
sure to be smashed as if you were actually doing so. 

You don't feel things at once, whenever they happen. 






1 he Rest of it. 6 7 

You become aware of them gradually. There are many- 
cases in which you do not feel relieved till a good while 
after relief has come. If the saddle has lain long and 
heavily on the back, you fancy it is there still, after it has 
been taken off. On the other hand, there are moral 
blows which you do not mind at first. You get a letter 
conveying very bad news ; just as heavy news as you are 
likely to receive in this world. And as you slowly fold 
the letter up, and replace it in its envelope, you are sur- 
prised to find how well you have borne this bitter blow. 
But hour after hour through the long day the trial seems 
greater and sadder. You are aware that the stroke did 
you more harm than you had fancied at first. And when 
at night you go to your sleepless bed, and toss about in 
utter misery, you are conscious that you are not bearing it 
w r ell at all. 

"We see a physical sight at once ; a moral spectacle 
takes time to make itself perceptible. I don't suppose 
that a chancellor can assume the chancellor the minute 
he receives the great seal. It gradually dawns upon him 
what a big place he fills. It is so with lesser positions in 
life. My friend Smith tells me that when he became 
incumbent of a large parish (it was his first), he did not 
feel, for many days, and even weeks, that he was such. 
When the people about his church, and the humble 
parishioners, treated him with great deference, he felt 
ashamed. Gradually he assumed authority, as he felt 
himself fairly seated on that humble throne. One of the 
most imposing sights I ever beheld was the Bishop of 



68 The Rest of it. 

Oxford pronouncing the blessing after preaching. It was 
a very large church. It was densely crowded — passages 
and all — by people who had come expressly to hear that 
eminent prelate. The prayers were got through in a very 
slovenly manner : and when the Bishop ascended the 
pulpit, there was that audible sigh and stir of the congre- 
gation which testified that here was the thing for which 
they had come to church that afternoon. The Bishop 
gave a very eloquent and rather misty sermon of an hour 
in length, about half as good as I have several times heard 
preached by a man who was esteemed as well paid with 
eight hundred a year. He got thoroughly warmed with 
his subject, and arresting the attention of most of those 
present, ended amid perfect stillness. Then, having prayed 
in the usual words, he laid down his little Prayer-book, 
and stretching forth his hands, uttered the benediction in 
the invariable form. It was most impressively done. 
And it was especially impressive to me, who am accus- 
tomed to hear the blessing pronounced by men who do it 
humbly — as well aware how much their blessing is worth. 
It was fine to hear it said by a man who honestly believed 
that a bishop's blessing is worth something, and said to 
a great crowd, in which many people believed that too. 
But I don't think that, for many days after the dis- 
tinguished individual was raised to the Episcopate, he 
could possibly have pronounced the blessing with the like 
authority. He must have grown accustomed to his place 
before he could assume it so well. 



The Rest of it. 69 

People talk about being settled in life : people think 
that when they attain a certain place, they are settled in 
life. Well, perhaps they are settled so far as concerns 
worldly position. That is, they hold the same office year 
after year, have the same income, live in the same house, 
know the same class of human beings. But in opinion, 
in feeling, in moral atmosphere, how far people are from 
being settled — how they drift away and away ! You 
might as well think to remain steadily fixed at a spot 
midway in the fathomless Atlantic as think to remain 
morally fixed in this life of never-ceasing change. There 
is a change in feeling even where there is no change in 
fact. As a fish, swimming in the sea, gets into a warmer 
stratum of water, and in a little into a colder again, so do 
we, after being for a little in a cheerful, amiable, charitable 
frame, get out of that into a discontented, envious, bitter, 
self-seeking, and malicious temper. It would be a nice 
thing, if, when we are at our best, we could throw out three 
anchors, and settle ourselves there. But we cannot. 

I confess there is something that strikes me as very 
terrible, when we find conscientious men stating as an 
objection to the subscription of religious tests by the 
clergy and others that a man cannot, at four or five and 
twenty, say what he may have come to believe by the 
time he is four or five and forty. It is a terrible thing to 
think, if one really must think it, that the fact of one's 
holding most firmly to-day the great verities of the Chris- 
tian faith, is no warrant against the possibility that some 



jo The Rest of it. 

day he may reject them all, and perhaps begin to write 
free-thinking articles and books : perhaps become a secu- 
larist lecturer. I should fancy that most men who en- 
tirely believe the truth of Christianity, would much rather 
be knocked on the head at once than live on to abjure it, 
if that was to be the result of their living on. Let us 
hope that however taste, feeling, political creed, aesthetic 
sensibility, may change, yet in the graver matter of our 
highest belief, year after year (if we are to see them) 
may bring no alteration. And let me say, that if our 
beliefs be what they should be, I have the firmest convic- 
tion that they will only grow stronger and deeper with 
advancing years. 

There is such a thing as a masterly inactivity, or what 
seems such. Now and then the course of nature favours 
lazy and dilatory folk ; and gives some colour of reason to 
the advice in the Spanish proverbial saying, Never do 
to-day what you can put off till to-morrow. Sometimes 
we take great trouble to do something which, if we had 
waited till to-morrow, we should not have needed to do 
at all. The necessity for it would have passed away. A 
person who is very careful in putting books and papers 
away in their proper places, finds occasionally that he has 
locked up something that comes to be wanted, and so has 
the labour of seeking it out again. A lazy, careless, un- 
tidy person would have escaped that labour. 

But that is a chance. The case is analogous to that of 
a man who takes poison ; and then finds that, by extra- 



The Rest of it. 7 i 

ordinary luck, it suits his constitution or his disease, and 
cures him instead of killing him. As a general rule, the 
right thing is to do things at once. The system of the 
universe does in the main favour people who go upon 
that tack. And it tends to clear all our views of things, 
and it conduces to a condition of quiet unexpressed con- 
tent, to do things at once. Nobody can be comfortable 
with a long score of little neglected duties running up 
against him. Besides, duty is never little. Wherever 
the moral element exists, the matter is great. Though a 
hair's breadth may make the difference between right and 
wrong, the difference between right and wrong is never 
a little difference. 

Still, as there are horses that need the spur, and horses 
that need the bridle, so there are human beings that need 
to be poked up, and others that need to be reined in. 
There are men who fly at their work and hold at it with 
a tension of the nervous system, which does not greatly 
accelerate or improve the work, but which makes it very 
killing for the worker. I have known a student who had 
six months in which to do a certain amount of reading, 
and who had got through it all in two. I have known a 
clergyman who could not be quite at peace, unless he 
fixed on Sunday evening on his text for next Sunday 5 and 
began to write his sermon on Monday morning by ten 
o'clock. In short, there is such a thing as taking any 
duty very heavily and anxiously : there is such a thing as 
taking it very lightly and hopefully. And I fear that 
those who are burdened for the race of life with an 



72 The Rest of it, 

anxious and eager heart, must just bear the burden as 
long as the race lasts. 

There is a case in which the man most impatient to be 
at his task, ought steadfastly to deny himself the relief of 
getting at it. It is where you have many things to do in 
the day. You know the uneasy, restless desire to be at 
work, wiping off part of the great score. You know the 
vague remorse with which one thinks that the minutes are 
running away, and no progress made. But you must 
definitively stop, and before beginning any portion of the 
task, sort it. Arrange it in the order in which it can 
most easily and swiftly be done. Here is a most econo- 
mical expenditure of time : it may save itself ten times 
over. If you have a list of many things to be done upon 
any day (and some folk have such a list for every day), 
you will be eager to get out and get at it. No ; sit down 
quietly. Refuse to mind the quickened pulse, and the 
whole physical and mental system chafing like a race- 
horse at the starting-post. Deliberately consider in what 
order these twenty things shall be done : number them 
accordingly. And when you have fairly gone out, keep 
to the plan chalked out. Let it be as the law of the 
Medes and Persians. You will find this best in the long 
run. 

A thought which will sometimes occur to very hard- 
working men is, What is the use of all this ceaseless 
driving on ? We all know men who flagrantly neglect 
their duty ; taking life very easily while you are taking it 
so hard': and yet, how well they manage to get through » 



The Rest of it, 73 

Nobody tells them what everybody thinks of them. And 
you may find men scandalously unfit for the place they 
hold, yet entirely satisfied with themselves : much more 
self-satisfied than laborious men, for laborious men know 
how much more they wish to do if their day were but 
increased to forty-eight hours, and if they could but be in 
two or even three places at a time. Generally men who 
are outrageously incompetent have two or three people 
who tell them they are remarkably competent 3 and thus 
act as buffers to keep off the shock and pressure of public 
opinion. Then, incompetent men stand by one another. 
An incompetent man is always glad, in a public assembly, 
to mention how able, laborious, and self-denying is another 
incompetent man. He hopes to be repaid in kind ; and 
besides this, he is doing what he can to lower the standard 
of competence. If a man of five feet two inches desires 
to be considered very tall, he will gladly go into any move- 
ment that may lead to a general belief that men of five feet 
two are very tall men. 
This is all. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE ORGAN IN SCOTLAND. 

THIS is a rainy day. In the morning, at eight 
o'clock, if you had walked down from this house 
through a green shady lane, with rich hedges and great 
trees on either hand, you would, at a distance of half-a- 
mile, have suddenly come upon the sea, looking leaden 
and sullen. Entering the sea, you would have found it 
very cold. There was no rain then ; but in an hour the 
clouds gathered, the wind moaned in a wintry way, and 
then drenching showers fell, wafted in from the Atlantic 
by the rainy south-west. Now the trees are green, the 
hedges are green, the ripening corn-field hard by is 
beginning to grow yellow, the roads that pass near are 
deep with mad. The sea, a grim expanse, is three 
hundred feet below ; the ground slopes steeply down to 
it. Above, there are moorlands, now looking quite black. 
On the whole, it is a day on which to record certain facts 
which have lately come within the scope of the writer's 
observation. 

Here is a little staircase. It is steep and dark : the 



The Organ in Scotland. 75 

steps are of wood. Let us ascend it. Now where are 
we ; and what do our eyes behold ? 

We are in a gallery in a church. It is a cruciform 
church, with short transepts. It is a Gothic edifice. The 
open roof is supported by beams of dark oak ; the plaster 
between the beams is painted blue. We may discover 
three windows filled with stained glass 5 one is a rose 
window, two are lancets. This gallery, situated at the 
extremity of the longest limb of the cross, is filled by a 
large and handsome organ. A small boy is blowing, 
solemnly working a long handle up and down. Some 
one is playing on the instrument 5 there are the magnifi- 
cent tones, so rich, sweet, soft, majestic. I reflect how 
my slight acquaintance, Dr Bumptious, in tones that set 
one's teeth on edge, has often declared in my unwilling 
ears that the human voice is far finer than any instrument. 
Just listen to his human voice (in so far as his voice can 
be called human), and you will be well assured of that. 

But surely there is nothing particular or remarkable in 
a Gothic church, nor yet in an organ gallery. Yes, my 
reader 3 but there is something very remarkable in finding 
an organ here. Look from this gallery towards the other 
end of the church, in the subdued light of stained glass 
and dark oak. What do you see there ? No altar, no 
reading-desk, no creed nor commandments nor Lord's 
prayer emblazoned : none of the things to which you are 
accustomed. There is just a pulpit and nothing else. 
You know what that means. This is a Scotch parish 
church. The Church of Scotland has no bishops and no 



j6 The Organ in Scotland. 

liturgy. This is a Presbyterian place of worship. And 
let me tell you, it is a great sign of the times to see this 
organ here. 

This is a week-day. There is no service. It is a day 
of practising. Let me relate some facts as to the Sunday 
services of this church. 

Last Sunday was the first of our holiday-time : our 
first Sunday here. And in a somewhat rainy and stormy 
morning, several figures might have been discerned leav- 
ing this dwelling about 10.30 a.m. Having walked a 
mile and a half along a breezy way, parallel with the sea 
and far above it, they might have been seen descending 
a path which leads to the church already mentioned. 
As you draw near the place, the tinkling of a some- 
what feeble bell falls upon the ear. It is not the worst 
bell which has summoned the writer to church. He 
remembers a day on which, at the appointed hour of 
worship, a man appeared at the church door and violently 
rang a dinner bell of small dimensions. Entering the 
church, among many more, you discover that the build- 
ing, which holds five hundred and fifty or so, is well 
filled ; indeed, almost crowded. As the bell ceased, the 
pealing organ began, and played a pretty voluntary. 
Though the organ has been here for no more than five or 
six Sundays, and though a good many of the congregation 
probably never heard an organ in church in their lives till 
this organ came here, the people took it all as a matter of 
course. They have got quite accustomed to it. I ara 



The Organ in Scotland. yy 

not going to give you a description of the service of the 
Scotch Church : though the most eloquent of living 
historians, after being present at a Scotch service for the 
first time, told the writer that the thing which mainly 
impressed him was, what an odd service it was. Only 
let it be said, that public worship begins with the singing 
of a psalm. And here, knowing the moral atmosphere, 
and understanding what prejudices and prepossessions 
must have been got over before such a thing could be, it 
was very strange, to hear the organ play over the tune 
first, and then to see the congregation rise to their feet, 
with one consent, and sing the psalm with a somewhat 
too powerful accompaniment. For the mode, hallowed 
to many Scotch hearts by old associations, is to sit still 
while you sing : thus indeed diminishing the power of 
your lungs to half ; but still finding abundant compensa- 
tion in the thought that thus you are bearing testimony 
against the corrupt mode of the unreformed church on the 
southern side of the Tweed. But how fine and cheering 
was that great volume of sound, that Sunday morning 
when the writer first heard an organ in a Scotch church ! 
Every one sung out with heart and voice : the choir, 
placed in the organ gallery, was quite drowned by the 
congregation 5 walls and roof seemed as vibrating ; and 
the whole thing quickened devotion, and prepared one 
for the following prayers ! Just one thought did intrude 
into the mind, that should have been wholly filled with 
God's praise : under the circumstances an excusable 



yS The Organ in Scotland. 

thought. The thought was as follows : Now I have 
heard some men, whom no one proposed to shut up in a 
lunatic asylum, say that this is wrong ! 

Of course the great principle on which all objections to 
the use of the organ in public worship go, is this : The 
uglier and more disagreeable anything is, the likelier it is 
to he the right thing. 

But no more now about that service : which was the 
very first Sunday's service at which the writer ever heard 
an organ in a Scotch church. 

A little more than nine years ago, an article written by 
this hand appeared in a certain Magazine ; an article en- 
titled The Organ Question. About that time people in 
Scotland were beginning to think that, considering the 
atrocious badness of church music generally in this coun- 
try, it might be desirable to do something towards im- 
proving it. Let it be said, with thankfulness, that in the 
last nine years, a good deal has been done, both in town 
and country, to that end. Ladies and gentlemen have, 
in many cases, come to believe that there is nothing 
degrading in becoming members of amateur choirs ; and 
the consequence is, that in many churches you have voices 
of such refinement and cultivation to lead the praise, as 
could not be got previously except at very great expense. 
You have the words sung, properly pronounced. And 
instead of the abominable tunes, full of flourishes and 
repetitions, which ambitious Scotch precentors were fond 
of singing, you have ecclesiastical music, simple, grave, 
easily joined in by all with ear and voice. Bran-new 



The Organ in Scotland. 79 

tunes, by pushing music-masters, have been in great 
measure forbidden j and music centuries old, as much 
better than those as Canterbury Cathedral is better than 
Salem Chapel, has come into use. Of course, early in 
the progress of the movement, voices here and there asked 
whether the organ might not be had. Yet so keen was 
the prejudice against that noble instrument in the minds 
of many who had broken away from the belief in the infalli- 
bility of a Pope or a Church, only to substitute for that the 
belief in the infallibility, even in matters aesthetical, of John 
Knox and a few more, that though the writer felt that the 
general use of the organ in Scotland was a thing quite as 
sure to come in time as the flowing of the tide, he said, 
at that time, that the existing generation of Scotchmen 
would not live to see it. But though some good people, 
who are entitled to credit for entire sincerity, and whose 
dread of removing the old landmarks was not wholly un- 
reasonable, did as it were go down to the seashore and 
'order the tide to cease flowing, stating that if it continued 
to flow it would be guilty of perjury, blasphemy, ingrati- 
tude, and even of bad taste, yet the tide quietly and 
surely progressed. And now, it is matter for wonder, 
when you find an educated Scotchman or Scotchwoman, 
under fifty years old, who is not clearly in favour of the 
organ : in favour, that is, of allowing congregations who 
want an organ to get one, and congregations who don't 
want an organ to do without it. Things have advanced 
much more rapidly than anyone would have believed 
possible ten years since. In Edinburgh, there is but one 



So The Organ in Scotland. 

organ in use in a parish church ; but in Glasgow, which 
is assuredly the capital of the wealth and enterprise of 
Scotland, there already are in use, or will be in use within 
a few weeks, no fewer than seven or eight. The Tron 
Church, whose walls used to re-echo the eloquence of 
Chalmers, has for many months had instrumental music : 
and I can testify from experience that the praise there is 
almost overwhelming, for its vast volume and heartiness. 
The congregation is for the most part of a humble class ; 
just of that class where one might have expected linger- 
ing prejudice against the "Kist fu' o' whistles; " but the 
large church is densely crowded, and every soul sings with 
might and main. The sound is as of thunder. Country 
churches progress more slowly : I believe this church by 
the seaside is almost the first which has started the true 
organ : not the harmonium, which is but a poor substi- 
tute. But without any gift of prophecy, one may safely 
predict that in a few years the organ will excite no more 
surprise in a Scotch church than now it does in an English 
one j and that every congregation will have an organ 
which wants one, and can afford it. 

Now, does any reader of this page desire to know how 
the phenomenon of the organ gallery and the organ 
appeared in this church ? How is it that on any Sunday 
you may find the congregation here devoutly worshipping 
with the aid of that grand instrument which some years 
ago appeared to many in Scotland as a thing to be 
longed for but not to be had ? 

Well, things have gone on rapidly within the last three 



The Organ in Scotland. 81 



<i> 



or four years. I remember, as yesterday, the day when 
one of the magistrates of the northern metropolis told me 
that the previous Sunday he and his fellows had paid an 
official visit to a certain church ; and that the music was: 
aided by a harmonium for the first time. One clergyman, 
greatly daring, and having ascertained that his flock would 
like it, made that beginning. The question of instru- 
mental music, thus raised, came before the Supreme 
Court of the Scotch Church at its meeting in May 18645, 
and a decision was come to which many regarded as 
tacitly sanctioning the organ, and which some regarded as 
doing something else. That uncertain sound would not 
do, and the General Assembly, in May 1865, having the 
organ question again brought up, decided that the power 
of permitting or refusing the use of an organ by any con- 
gregation, lies with the Presbytery of th bounds, and 
recommended that when any congregation did, with 
something like unanimity, express to the Presbytery its 
wish for an organ, the Presbytery should give that wish 
the most favourable consideration. This judgment of the 
Supreme Court was carried by a majority against another 
which had been proposed, whose gist was that each con- 
gregation should be free to have an organ if it liked,, 
without asking leave of the Presbytery at all. 

So you see what a Scotch minister has to do, if his con- 
gregation comes in a unanimous way, and says it wants an 
organ. Go to the Presbytery at its next meeting 5 produce 
satisfactory evidence of the congregation's wish ; and the 
permission of the Presbytery has followed as of course in 



82 The Organ in Scotland. 

all such cases hitherto. Of course, if a considerable 
portion of the congregation desires to go on in the old 
way, it is all quite fair that their bias or prejudice should 
be considered. The burden of proof must rest on those 
who want the change. And a usage hitherto maintained 
under an understood common law, ought not to be altered 
unless people are nearly unanimous in wishing that it 
should be altered. If your congregation esteems an 
organ as an emblem of Baal, you would be very foolish if 
you try to thrust an organ upon it. But if your congre- 
gation unanimously desires to have an organ, you would 
be equally silly if you make any opposition to that desire. 
The fact is, a clergyman of the Scotch Church who likes 
the organ, is in precisely the same position as a clergyman 
of the Anglican Church who would like to put his choir 
in surplices. It is a pure matter of aesthetics : there is no 
principle involved. And if worthy people have a keen 
prejudice against the thing, esteeming it as a rag of Popery, 
and as the thin end of the wedge whose thick end is Father 
Newman or else Bishop Colenso; why, you will (if you 
have good sense and good feeling) yield meanwhile to 
that prejudice, and try gradually to educate people out 
of it. " I have no objection to the organ," said a worthy 
mechanic to a Scotch clergyman, within the last few weeks ; 
" but I understand that whenever the organ is brought in, 
there 's to be an attack made on the doctrine of the Atone- 
ment." A choral service is a fine thing ; but the Angli- 
can rector who tries to establish it in a church where all 
the people abominate it, is a great fool. So an organ is a 



The Organ in Scotland. 83 

fine thing j but no man of sense will thrust it upon people 
who revolt at it. 

The following temperate and judicious remarks are from 
a sermon published by Dr Robertson, minister of Glasgow 
Cathedral 5 late minister, alas that it must be said. He 
had not a superior among the Scotch clergy : for manly 
grasp of mind, for pith and point in treating his subject, he 
had hardly an equal. Let it be added, that a more genial, 
kindly, liberal-minded, and honest man, never walked this 
earth. Here are that eminent man's views about instru- 
mental music in church : — 

" With regard to church music, every one knows that 
the question is coming to be more and more considered 
every day, whether it would not be an improvement to 
make use of the help of instruments. 

" There seems to be no good reason why this should 
not be done. Under the ancient Jewish dispensation the 
harp, the timbrel, and other instruments of music, were 
used in the service of God ; and there seems to be nothing 
in the New Testament principles to forbid our making 
use, in like manner, of such instrumental aid to the voice 
as may be suitable to the habits and associations of the 
present day. There are many instruments, certainly, 
which one would hardly like to hear in church service : 
our associations being such, that the use of them is not in 
the meantime, and is not likely ever to become, appropri- 
ately suggestive of reverent ideas. There is one instru- 
ment, however, against which this objection does not lie, 
— I mean the organ. And I do not hesitate to say in 



84 The Organ in Scotland. 

public, what I have often said, and heard many of my 
brethren say, in private, that there appears to be no reason 
why such congregations as may wish it, should not be 
permitted to employ this help to the voice. The matter 
is not so important as to be worth division in congrega- 
tions : but should any congregation desire it, with a near 
approach to unanimity, it seems only consistent with a 
reasonable liberty that they should be allowed to gratify 
their wish." 

Plain good sense, I know that my readers will say : 
who could doubt all that? But let me tell you that 
there are worthy folk in Scotland still, who would accuse 
the man who should say all that of no one knows what 
fearful heresy. Happily, they cannot burn him. And I 
am not entirely sure that they would, even if they could. 

Tact is needed to put the use of the organ before pre- 
judiced minds in the way least likely to awake prejudice. 
An esteemed friend of the writer, some time ago, had an 
organ erected in his church. A voluntary was played 
before and after service. Some honest people complained 
of this. They said that this sound was not worship. " I 
don't say it is," replied their ingenious pastor; " but neither 
is the shuffling of feet and slamming of pew doors as 
people are coining in and going out : and don't you think 
the organ, which drowns these noises, is the pleasanter 
sound of the two ?" There was no resisting that way of 
putting the case. And yet that way was perfectly true. 
Would that every good cause, which needs to be judi- 
ciously put, had as able an advocate ! 



The Organ in Scotland. 85 

Of course, all this movement has been accompanied by 
some ill-humour on both sides. Excellent men, ultra- 
conservative in all things, have been known to accuse the 
advocates of the organ of various forms of heterodoxy : of 
Socinianism, Atheism, and even of Bourignianism. On 
the other hand, the advocates of the organ, impatient of 
an opposition which they esteemed as the result of stupid 
prejudice, have in many cases been known to describe 
their opponents as pig-headed blockheads. Excellent 
men, doubtless, on either side : but controversy tends to 
wax keen. For we are a perfervid race 3 and sometimes 
fail to do each other justice. 



CHAPTER V. 

CONCERNING ROADSIDE STATIONS; WITH SOME 
THOUGHTS ON THE TERMINUS AD QUEM. 

I SAY the terminus ad quern, to distinguish it from 
the other terminus of the railway. For though in 
severe accuracy, the terminus of your journey by railway 
can only be at the journey's end, in popular language the 
other terminus is the one from which you start ; the be- 
ginning of your journey. My present discourse shall be 
of the stations along the way at which one stops for a 
period longer or shorter 5 and of the terminus at which 
you finally stop, the journey ended. 

Yet let it be said, in passing, that the word terminus is 
a hateful word. All words affectedly taken from other 
languages are hateful. Those from the French tongue 
are the worst. Doubtless it is to be admitted that there 
are shades of sense not to be conveyed by single English 
words, which a French word hits off exactly. Still, I 
remember how ill it looked to me, when I heard a great 
preacher vociferating from the pulpit the words en rapport. 
He rendered them, aung ruppoarrr. 

But who shall ndit with all the world ? Wise men, 



Roadside Stations, &c. 87 

much beaten about the head as they go on through life, 
when they find that all mankind will think in a way they 
esteem as wrong, come to heave a wearied sigh, turn 
silently away, and keep their own opinion in their pocket. 
Now, the world has said that terminus shall be the word 
to signify the big handsome or the little ugly shed, which 
has no egress at the farther end for railway carriages : 
before approaching which the train is drawn up and the 
tickets collected ; and beyond which the train does not 

go- 
Not of the material railway is the writer about to tell : 

though upon this evening he might well do so. For upon 
this day, from early morning to late afternoon, he has 
journeyed on by as wonderful a railway as you are very 
likely to see. Alongside the purple Grampians ; through 
the pass of Killicrankie, glorious yet fatal to the bonnie 
Dundee ; by the Spey, and by the Garry 5 does that rail- 
way bear you, till at length you may stop, if you like, in 
the little cathedral city on the banks of the noble Tay. 
Having just this minute ascertained the fact from Mr 
Black's excellent guide-book, I think it proper to say that 
every schoolboy knows that the Tay is a river three 
times as big as the Thames : that is, it conveys to the sea 
a good deal more than three times as much fresh water. 

Go out and see that beautiful ruin of a cathedral, stand- 
ing within the verge of a ducal park. Mourn over the 
roofless nave, with its graceful tower at the western end. 
Mourn yet more, if it be possible, as you enter the choir, 
and find it vilely fitted up as the parish church. There 



88 Roadside Stations ; with so?ne 

are galleries : hideous pews, in which people sit looking 
across the vault : a fearful pulpit, with two stairs ascend- 
ing to it, one useless stair to balance the practicable one. 
Climb that practicable stair, enter that pulpit, and con- 
sider how you would like to preach from it. Then you 
may return to an old-fashioned hotel, and have tea. If 
ever you shouid have tea at that hotel, having dined 
many hours before, tell them to give you grilled fowl 
with your tea. From personal knowledge, the writer can 
say that the grilled fowl there is eminently and meri- 
toriously good. 

But my roadside stations are moral ones : moral is my 
terminus ad quern. I purpose to speak of views and feel- 
ings and beliefs as to which we fancy we have reached 
the terminus, while in fact we have only stopped for a 
little while at a roadside station. We say to ourselves, 
Now, my mind is made up ; and I shall always think 
and fee] as I do. Ah, that is not so ! We are gliding on 
with a silent current, that bears us away and away. Well 
says Dr Xewman, in words which the experience of very 
many will help them thoroughly to understand, " It is the 
concrete being that reasons : pass a number of years, and 
I find my mind in a new place. How r The whole man 
moves." 

True, true ! I have come to think that the terminus 
of our views and feelings is no other than the terminus of 
the whole path through this life. We shall be changing 
to the end : not always or in all things for the better. 
You have sometimes travelled through a fair country, and 



Thoughts on the Terminus ad Quern, 89 

stopped at places amid green trees, and by rustic water- 
falls, under bright skies : but as the day declined, you 
entered on a bare treeless tract, and at length concluded 
your journey in chill and darkness at midnight in the 
thick air and blank ugliness of some great manufacturing 
town. Now, in our views and moods and feelings, we 
run risk of doing just that. Oh let us stay where the 
trees are green, the skies bright, the waters clear ! Don't 
take us into a moral Manchester or Leeds, if it be pos- 
sible to stay in a moral Wells or Salisbury ! 

Yet before going on to these things, let us give a 
thought, kindly reader, to the fashion in which we fancy 
that as to our place in life we have got to the terminus, 
when in fact we are merely stopping, in a little while to 
move, at a roadside station. Have not we all done this ? 
The writer, for one, more than once. Did he ever think 
to leave that beautiful city wherein he wrote full many a 
page of sermon and of essay ; or to leave that plain and 
indeed shabby church, wherein, twice on each Sunday, 
he preached for six years ? Sore, indeed, he felt, when 
friends from other lands freely expressed to him their 
mind concerning that edifice : specially when a dear friend, 
rector of an English parish which has a beautiful church, 
being asked what he thought of the church which bears 
the Mellifluous Doctor's name, said, " Well, I don't regard 
it so much as a church, but rather as a place of shelter 
from the weather!" But the force of circumstances 
pushed him on : and after all, that pleasant resting-place 
proved to be no more than a roadside station. Perhaps 



90 Roadside Stations ; with some 

the quaint and ancient city, cathedral city and university 
city in one, which is now his charge, may prove the like 
too. It was indeed the terminus of each of the good men 
who went before me : and it may very well be mine too. 
Not in this country's bounds will you rind a fairer scene, 
or more congenial duty. Some folk do not care for such 
things : but to the author it is a very real and tangible 
privilege to be one of those who conduct the service of a 
church, on the ground contained within which Christian 
men, in different ways indeed, have worshipped for eight 
hundred years. Once that church had thirty clergymen : 
now it has but two. Once, its chief official was termed 
an archbishop : now, its two incumbents bear each the 
title of minister. But the archbishops were sometimes 
murdered ; and sometimes hanged. From such perils the 
humbler existing dignitaries are happily free. And Car- 
dinal or Lord Primate had oftentimes the care of the 
nation on his hands : while the duty now-a-days is not 
national but parochial. 

It is well, doubtless, that people should fancy their 
stopping-place for the moment, their terminus. You do 
many a thing, very proper to be done, because you fancy 
that, which otherwise you would not do at all. And very 
unwillingly the conviction forces its way sometimes, that 
the present is but a wayside station. Has it not come to 
the heart, now and then, like a sharp dagger? Even 
when not so bad as that, it is often bad enough. You 
make a pretty house. You paint it to your mind : and 
on your lobby floor you lay down encaustic tiles of pleas- 



Thoughts on the Terminus ad Quern. 9 1 

ing pattern. You set up your book-cases, not unfre- 
quently having such made for little corners, so that they 
will not do anywhere else. You accumulate and arrange 
your household gods. You grow, morally, into the shape 
of the room in which you write and read for many years. 
What associations cluster round that abode ! Was there a 
room, whence it was very long before the smell of fresh 
wood would go : the room where through some cold 
winter days a sweet smiling little face lay in the little 
coffin ? A thousand ties bind you to a dwelling even in 
a town : remembrances of words and looks that are gone ; 
of unexpected glad news, of silent unutterable sorrow ; of 
youthful shouts and laughter, of maturer smiles and tears. 
But in town you have but the indoor associations : in the 
country there are the evergreens you planted, the walks 
you devised, the roses you trained and the ivy, the green 
grass mowed unceasingly, beside which you have often 
stood under an umbrella and watched it gaining a more 
emerald verdure under a soft summer shower. How that 
gravel has been beaten by your feet : what races you have 
run, chasing your little children over that turf: how it 
gladdened you to come back after a little absence to this 
place, which was to you the centre of all the world ! And 
now you are to be pulled up by the roots from all the 
holds to which the roots have fastened themselves. Yes, 
it takes a tremendous pull from the great locomotive of 
circumstances, to move you from the roadside station 
which you had taken for the terminus ! And it is always 
a strange thing, and a sad thing, to recall that scene. 



92 Roadside Stations ; with some 

Many are the lines in Philip Van Artevelde that linger on 
the ear and heart, and come back like an unwearying 
refrain to a hundred things one thinks of: none more 
than these : — ■ 

There is a door in Ghent, — I passed beside it : — 
A threshold there, worn of my frequent feet, 
Which I shall cross no more. 

In the years spent under that roof with his gentle 
Adriana, Artevelde doubtless thought he had reached the 
terminus ; but a tremendous tug moved him on from that, 
and from the sunshiny garden of roses he had to go to 
wild moorlands, black and bare. But if you want to read 
the most touching of all accounts of how a man took a 
roadside station for the terminus, you may find it in a 
book where there is sublimer poetry than Mr Henry 
Taylor's : turn up the twenty-ninth chapter of Job. Yes, 
the patient patriarch recalls fondly the wayside station : 
tells of all the things that made it so pleasant : tells how 
certainly he counted on its being the terminus : tells how 
he was pushed away from it into dreary desolation. Read 
all that : it is too long to quote 3 and this is not the place. 
But as for the dwelling you left, some day you go back 
again to see it. Probably you feel it would have been 
better if you had not. Perhaps your walks, once so trim, 
are grown up with weeds. Perhaps the dear old ever- 
greens have grown, unpruned, into awkward monsters, in 
which you cannot recognise the old features at all. Per- 
haps, where there was green turf, the delight of your heart, 



Thoughts on the Terminus ad Quern. 93 

overhanging branches and hateful hens have destroyed it 
all. Perhaps you sit down for half-an-hour, alone, on the 
steps once your own, and recall the past. Then you shake 
your head several times : and leave the spot, to return no 
more. 

if Artevelde had gone back to that dwelling, not to 
be revisited, you see what a gush of remembrances would 
have rushed over him, and broken him down for the time. 
Yes, it is a curious thing, to go back from what you 
meanwhile esteem your terminus, to see a roadside station 
whence you departed, long ago. For though the present 
location you hold be a great deal better, the old one will 
yet pierce you through. There was a man, the son of 
the clergyman of a little Scotch country town, who left 
his native scenes, and went to a certain great metropolis. 
There, by great industry, great ability, and great good 
luck, he pushed his way : till he arrived at a place as 
honourable and elevated as a British subject can hold. 
But, having reached that dignified terminus, he returned 
once on a time to visit the roadside station in his life 
where he had spent his early years : and he silently 
walked about the old ways. Then, he entered the house 
of an old friend : a lady who had known him all his life. 
Said she, " Well, Lord C, you have been seeing the old 
place: what do you think of it?" And the good man, 
in the zenith of fame and success, could answer only by 
covering his face with his hands and crying like a little 
child. That is what you think and feel, going back to a 
wayside station long since left for ever. " A day like this 



94 Roadside Stations ; with some 

which I have left, Full thirty years behind/' is always a 
wonderful day to look back upon, however ordinary it 
was when it was passing. 

All this is introductory to my proper subject. It is as 
concerns our opinions and feelings that I 'desire to think 
of roadside stations and the terminus ad quern. Many 
opinions, many feelings and affections, which we thought 
we should keep all our life, we outgrow. We come not 
to care a brass farthing for things,, places, people, we 
thought we should care for all our days. You, young 
fellow, who were engaged to be married thirteen times, 
fancied that each new engagement was the terminus ; in 
fact, it was merely a station at which you stopped a little 
while. You, old party, about to be married for the 
seventh time, have learned that all the previous marriages 
were no more than roadside stations. You honestly 
deemed each the terminus in its own day. You would 
have indignantly repudiated the suggestion that it was 
anything else. You, gentle young girl, when your judi- 
cious and matter-of-fact parents broke off your engage- 
ment with a lad who had not a penny wherewith to bless 
either himself or you, thought you would never get over 
that dreadful disappointment : you would wear the willow 
through life. Ah, life is very long : much longer than 
young people have any idea : by-and-by you will think 
better of it, and judge a great deal more wisely : you will 
be pulled out of that eminently unsatisfactory rut in which 
at present you are stuck 5 and will advance prosperously 



Thoughts on the Terminus ad Quern. 95 

along the rails again, to the halting-place of your next 
engagement (let us trust) to a sensible, amiable, and com- 
petently-wealthy man. And, going to more philosophic 
thoughts, you know how the most vital changes pass on 
our opinions on all things. It is not that you reason 
yourself out of your old views, or into your new ones : it 
is just that you grow into them. You glide away. You 
fancied yourself securely anchored ; but you were drifting 
all the while. When Dr Newman published hard things 
against the Church of Rome, he fancied that these views 
so expressed were his terminus. Others, looking at him, 
saw what he did not himself see, that his position was no 
more than a small refreshment station, with eight minutes 
allowed, at the top of a very steep incline 5 and that in a 
little while the train would be tearing away at great 
speed to what Dr Newman now thinks right and what he 
then thought wrong. No one can read his Apologia, 
especially in that second edition in which the undue bitter- 
ness with which he resented the attack of " a popular 
writer of the day" is in great degree mitigated and 
removed, without having the firmest assurance of that 
eminent man's entire honesty of purpose : and few (may 
it be said?) can read it without wondering that he ever 
dreamt that the manifestly provisional and temporary 
views he held, and which he was ever modifying, were 
those which would endure with him : wondering that he 
took for the terminus what you could see with half an eye 
had the rails stretching far ahead; — what was, in short, a 
roadside station. 



9 6 Roadside Stations ; with some 

I cannot but say that it seems to me that any opinion 
that differs very much from the usual way of thinking, 
even if the opinion be magnanimous and right, is likely to 
prove a roadside station. A continual force, constant as 
that of gravitation, is ever bearing on the man who holds 
the exceptional view : and that force will probably beat 
him in the end. Goethe, Schiller, Coleridge, Southey, 
Wordsworth, all started by thinking very differently from 
mankind at large, and ended by thinking very much as do 
people in general. Shakspeare, with all his immeasurable 
depth of thought and power of mind, did not hold excep- 
tional opinions. His views are the glorification of sound 
common sense. He is the embodiment of a supremely 
wise Mrs Grundy. If, in taste and philosophy, you have 
come to hold by him, you may trust that you have reached 
the terminus, beyond which you will not go. 

A young fellow once told me that he had finally made 
up his mind that he never would argue with anybody on 
any topic. Argument, he said, never affected opinion ; 
because general opinion does not found on reason, but on 
sentiment and constitution ; and people get angry when 
argued with, but are not convinced. " I never," he said, 
" would take the trouble of expressing my own views, 
however sure I might be that they were right : I would 
keep them to myself: it is all no use and no matter." 
When I heard him say all this, I thought to myself, 
" Ah, you are stopping at a little station high up in the 
hills : in a little while you will move on, and glide down 
to the place held by ordinary beings." So he did : and, 



Thoughts on the Terminus ad Quern. 97 

indeed, went on farther than most people do. If you 
should fall in with him now, you would find him keenly 
disposed to an argument, and eager to thrust his views 
upon you. I do not know whether he expects his fellow- 
creatures to be convinced by his reasons 5 but at least he 
makes sure that they shall hear them. 

So with a young fellow who was used to declare that 
he had no ambition 5 that he did not care for success, 
standing, or fortune. He honestly thought he did not : 
for the grapes we cannot get do really seem sour ; they 
are not falsely called so, in many cases. You know it, 
my reader : you have no estimate at all of the thing you 
can never reach 5 or you estimate it slightly. But let 
success come, or wealth, or reputation : and you will go 
down the ringing rails till you reach the level of the 
ordinary way of thinking among ordinary folk. It is 
exceedingly pleasant, after all, to succeed, to grow rich, 
to be well esteemed. Not but that the best and noblest 
that is in our nature is brought out by disappointment and 
failure, rightly met, rightly used. Poor and shallow will 
that character be, which has been formed in the unbroken 
sunshine of a lot in which all goes well. Yet we should 
all like to be formed into something good, with just as 
little trituration as may be. And on this matter, as on 
others, we may say, without hesitation, that all eccentricity 
of judgment, unless you are a great man like Mr Carlyle, 
or a fool, is just a roadside station at a considerable height, 
from which you will most assuredly glide away. Not of 
necessity to what is better. From unselfish magnanimity 



98 Roadside Stations ; with some 

you may pass on to baseness ; from geniality to bitterness ; 
from industry to laziness ; from tidiness to slovenliness ; 
from a condition in which your outward aspect is deco- 
rously neat, to another in which you wear a shocking bad 
hat, a great woollen comforter round your neck, a baggy 
cotton umbrella, and no gloves. From a state wherein 
you think well of most of your fellow-men, you may 
advance to one in which you think ill of all. From that 
in which you give a penny to every beggar that asks one, 
you may proceed to that in which you will threaten such 
with the police, or bid them go to their parish. 

Now here let it be said, that there are some really 
good people who are standing at the station of never 
giving anything to the poor ; of always suspecting impos- 
ture, and repeating the weary tale of the two or three 
cases in which they have been imposed on in a pretty 
long life. Would that I could unscrew their breaks, let 
their wheels freely revolve, give them a tug with a power- 
ful locomotive, and take them away from that to some- 
thing far wiser and better. 

To this end, let me record my experience, on two suc- 
cessive days, of two little ragged boys. 

At 8 o'clock p.m., at this season, it is quite dark. Id 
that darkness did the writer issue from a very seedy little 
railway station, on the outskirts of a large and horribly 
ugly town. A black bag, of considerable weight, was 
sustained in the writer's left hand. A small boy, with a 
face that looked sharp and hungry in the gaslight, waiting 
outside the gate, begged urgently to be allowed to carry 



Thoughts on the Terminus ad Quern. 99 

the bag j and receiving it, placed it on his head. Had it 
been daylight the fear of Mrs Grundy might have pre- 
vented me from walking by the boy's side and conversing 
with him : but in the dark, and in a place where one 
was unknown, such fear was needless. Eleven years old : 
Name, Patrick. Father and mother living. Had one 
sister. The people who get into cabs, and hire porters, 
without ever thinking that the cabman and the porter are 
human beings, with human ties, cares, and sorrows, would 
be startled, if they talked to such, to find how like to 
themselves these mortals are. Yes, Mr Justice Talfourd 
was right : the thing that separates class from class, is 
want of sympathy. Father, a labourer at the docks : 
drank all he made. The little boy was trying to do 
something for his mother. His father and mother never 
went to church. He never went to school, but on the 
Sunday evenings. Could not read the Bible. Stayed at 
the railway station all day, for the chance of carrying 
things. Got four and sixpence a week, often. What 
was the largest sum you ever got for carrying one thing ? 
Ninepence : even a shilling. Poor little fellow : the 
question was too trying : I saw the sharp look as he 
named the latter great sum. It is not fair to subject the 
moral principle of human beings to a breaking strain. 
Probably I ought to have cross-examined him with seve- 
rity as to the occasions on which he received the amount 
named. But I resolved rather to indulge myself in the 
sight of a hungry and dirty face, looking happy. So I 
said, My little man, I want to give you more than you 

LofC. 



ioo Roadside Stations ; with some 

ever got before for carrying a bag : here is eighteenpence ! 
Lively was the child's satisfaction. But that is not the 
point. If you train yourself just to think that ragged 
boys feel very much as you yourself do, you will discover 
that there is something infinitely touching and heart- 
moving in the view of the little figure, with torn trousers, 
stoutly walking on before you over the muddy streets 
with a leather bag on its head. When you come in actual 
contact with the poor, and see them and talk with them, 
it is a very different thing from any description, no matter 
by whom written. 

But the most remarkable little boy I have seen for a 
long time, I met the next day. As a small party of 
travellers sat on the deck of a nearly empty steamer, a 
ragged boy appeared, bearing one of those wooden boxes 
in which figs are sold. But the figs were gone, and in 
the box there were two brushes : with these he offered 
to brush human boots. It was no later than 8.30 a.m., 
and no one's boots needed brushing. So his aid was 
declined. But lingering, with a disappointed face, he 
said, "You might encourage trade." The boy was just 
ten years old. This was not a joke : it was said with a 
solemn and anxious countenance. Somebody sought for 
some pence to give him. u No," he said, " I don't like 
to take money for doing nothing." Who could resist 
that? The one man of the company set his foot upon 
the old fig-box : and one foot was speedily made re- 
splendent. "Very well indeed," were his words: "thank 
you." To which the little man earnestly said, as he 



Thoughts on the Terminus ad Quern. 101 

rubbed away at the other foot, "It's me that should 
thank you, for giving me the job." Then, being inter- 
rogated what he got for cleaning a pair of boots, he said, 
sometimes a penny, sometimes twopence. Of course he 
got a good deal more : and went and showed his coin 
with pride to a gentleman near, who had said a kind 
word to him. 

The most Medusan cynic that ever could have benefited 
this world through quitting it by being hanged, does not 
see more plainly than I do how supremely little all this 
is to tell. But how diiferent it is to look at the actual 
human face, and to come to know even a. little about any 
human being ! And knowing the poor as the writer has 
learned to know them, you will feel that there is some- 
thing unutterably revolting in the use of those deprecia- 
tory terms which thoughtless people often employ to 
signify their less fortunate creatures. Such a term as 
the canaille is loathsome for a weightier reason than that 
it is not an English word. And when you come to know 
something of the anxieties, sorrows, and cares of the poor, 
of their sad calculations as to the disposal of their scanty 
means, of their wonderful shifts in the matter of food and 
clothing, of what sickness is to them, — you will under- 
stand better the force of that most Christian sentiment of 
a heathen dramatist, who thought that forasmuch as he 
was a man, he had something to do with what concerns 
any human being. 

There is a respect, in which I have sorrowfully seen a 



102 Roadside Stations ; with some 

man move on from what both he and I had judged his 
terminus, to a further station. There is a station which 
when you reach it, you will naturally conclude to be a 
terminus, but which may prove to be no more than a 
roadside station. It is that of good sense. I mean that 
mood of mind and heart, the result of experience and of 
advancing time, on reaching which a man says to himself, 
Well I have lost a good many things as I have come along, 
and have been battered about both head and heart : but I 
have got this in exchange for all, that at least I shall not 
make a terrific fool of myself any more : I have drawn 
up, finally, in the sober terminus of reasonable expecta- 
tions, rational purposes, and sound sense. And doubtless, 
in many cases, this station proves to be a terminus : the 
man who has entered it does not pass through it into 
onward tracts of flighty folly. Truth and soberness, once 
reached, are oftentimes a possession for ever. But not 
always. Probably you never saw anyone exhibiting him- 
self as a more egregious ass, than one who had passed 
through sobering trials which had indeed sobered him for 
a while, but whose impression had died away. You 
thought of Don Quixote's astonishment when the pacific 
Rosinante began to kick up his heels : surely all that had 
been taken out of the creature long ago ! A man with a 
bald head and gray hair, whirling about in a waltz with 
a fat middle-aged woman with a good many false teeth, 
presents a surprising and humiliating appearance. A man 
exhibiting a frantic exhilaration in the prospect of his third 
marriage, is a lamentable object of contemplation. 



Thoughts on the Terminus ad Quern. 103 

I fancied that I had a great deal more to say. But 
now, on consideration, I cannot think of anything. This 
point in my treatise, which I had deemed no more than 
a roadside station, has suddenly taken to itself the charac- 
ter of the terminus ad quern I 



CHAPTER VI. 

PRESBYTERIAN SERMONS FROM ARCHIEPISCOPAL 
CHURCHES* 

IF you chose to come with me, on this sunshiny day 
midway in November, along this path that runs by 
the verge of this bright-blue sea, I could take you to as 
solemn a burying-place as you are likely to find. That 
not very melodious bell that just at this minute fills the 
air, is summoning to work the students of a College 
which forms part of a certain ancient and famous Univer- 
sity. On your right hand, over a lofty wall, you may 
discern buildings of unpretending Gothic : that is the 
College. And on your left hand, at the base of a cliff of 
no great height, spreads the sea. When we have pro- 
ceeded but a few steps, we shall behold, on our left, the 
ruins of a considerable castle, whose seaward walls rise 

* I. Lectures and Sermons. By the Rev. John Park, D.D., 
Minister of the First Charge, St Andrews. Edinburgh and 
London: Blackwoods. 1865. 

2. Sermons and Expositions. By the late John Robertson, D.D., 
Glasgow Cathedral. With a Memoir of the Author, by the Rev. J. 
G. Young, Minister of Monifieth. London: Strahan. 1865. 



Presbyterian Sermons. 105 

sheer from the water. Castle and palace in one, that 
abode was the home of the Cardinal Archbishop, the Pri- 
mate of the land. Once there was a day, when many soft 
and comfortable cushions were carried up to the roof of 
that tower, and upon these the Cardinal reclined in much 
ease and state, while there, a little to the east, the faggots 
were lighted which consumed a true and single-hearted 
Martyr. And a day followed, not long after, whereon, 
just after breakfast, the slain body of the Cardinal was 
hung by one leg from that window, to the end that all 
might be assured that his energetic life was fairly ended. 
Let us pass on, thankful that the days of burning theo- 
logians who think differently from ourselves are gone. 
The people, in this age, who would burn their opponents 
if they could, are confined to misrepresenting their views, 
Writing malignant letters about them in the newspapers 
(anonymously), and generally telling lies to their preju- 
dice. Imperfectly, indeed, are some, who we trust are 
really good men, delivered from envy, hatred, and malice, 
and all uncharitableness. 

But we forget them, entering this grand churchyard. 
Here, on the shore, and within hearing of the waves, the 
departed generations of the city have gathered for a 
thousand years. Rising from the green turf you may 
discern the ruins of a noble cathedral : there are the sky- 
framing windows, the bases of many shafts, a western 
turret, and the eastern gable. Hard by, also within the 
churchyard, stands the lofty tower of a still older church, 
with a little bit of what was its choir : if you desire to do 



106 Presbyterian Sermons 

a kind thing, you will believe that it has stood here for 
fifteen centuries. What most strikes a stranger, walking 
about and looking at the gravestones,, is the multitude of 
professors, principals, and clergymen, that are buried 
here. Many, indeed, there are that have passed from the 
quiet walks, the quaint streets, the academic halls, of the 
ancient city, to its burying-place. And among those 
buried here, there are none worthier than two who were 
laid here since 1865 began : one in January, the other in 
April : the authors of these two volumes of posthumous 
sermons. There are various points of resemblance be- 
tween the positions of these distinguished and most amiable 
men. Each was the Presbyterian incumbent of a cathe- 
dral and archiepiscopal city. In the old days, the Church 
in Scotland had two archbishops : the Archbishop of St 
Andrews was primate, his companion dignitary was tne 
Archbishop of Glasgow. The National Church of Scot- 
land now knows no archbishops or bishops. But old 
names cling to old things and places : the noble church 
at Glasgow, which has now no cathedra, yet keeps its 
ancient name of cathedral ; and in it the services were 
conducted by Dr Robertson. There, when the bells 
ceased on a Sunday, no surpliced train came in procession 
to the stalls of the choir : a single minister, in robes of 
sober black, issued from the chapter-house, and ascended 
the pulpit, and began the simple service of the Scotch 
Church. Yet, though the devout Anglican might miss 
his own magnificent choral worship, I think that if he 
had heard Dr Robertson preach, he would have been 



from Archiepiscopal Churches. 107 

assured that very few among the dignitaries of the great 
Establishment south of the Tweed were worthy of being 
placed second or third to him. As for the ancient metro- 
politan city, its cathedral is in ruins. There, amid the 
surrounding expanse of green graves, pervaded by the 
never-failing murmur of the sea, those desolate remains 
testify to the power of a too eloquent sermon preached 
by John Knox. But the ancient parish church of the 
Holy Trinity was ranked as pro-cathedral when episco- 
pacy was restored for a while under the Stuarts : a grand 
monument to Archbishop Sharpe holds a conspicuous 
place in it ; and in that vast building Dr Park preached 
for eleven years. Both died at St Andrews : Dr Robert- 
son after lingering illness, which had for several months 
laid him aside from duty, at the age of forty-one 5 Dr 
Park, in a moment, at the age of sixty-two. And here, 
not far apart, they are buried. 

Would you wish to know something, High-Church 
Anglican reader, of the kind of instruction preached by 
two of the most eminent of Presbyterian ministers, in 
these churches where you might probably say they had 
no right to be ? Probably you are aware (if you are a 
decently-informed human being) that the average standard 
of preaching is considerably higher in Scotland than in 
England : as indeed ought to be the case in a church 
whose clergy are educated to write sermons, and whose 
worship makes instruction at least as prominent as devo- 
tion. But in these two volumes, you doubtless have 
specimens of Scotch preaching at its very best. Let me 



108 Presbyterian Sermons 

counsel you to read them. And suffer a few words 4 by 
way of introduction to them, from one who does not 
pretend to look at either book with the unbiassed estimate 
of a stranger. 

Let the metropolitan city and its minister come first. 

Just once did I hear Dr Park preach. It was fifteen 
years ago, when a student at college, that chancing to 
arrive at the pretty town of Dumfries on a Fast-day 
(which in Scotland means a week-day on which there is 
service at church, but on which at home, especially in the 
houses of the clergy, there is a better dinner than usual), 
I was told, as an inducement to go to church, that the 
great advantage that afternoon awaited the congregation 
of the parish church of St Michael, of hearing Mr Park, 
minister of Glencairn. I remember well the first look of 
the preacher, entering the church. It was certainly dis- 
appointing. Very dark, with a sad and downcast aspect, 
he did not at first look the man he was. But coming to 
know the face better, you could see in it great power, 
thoughtfulness, and kindliness. The sermon he preached 
is not in the published volume, which is matter for regret. 
It was a very fine one : the text was, He shall be a priest 
upon his throne. I recall the church, as it looked that 
afternoon : the overwhelming energy of the preacher, the 
thorough heart with which he threw himself into what 
he said, the beautiful little bits of life-like description, the 
occasional touches of pathos : the breathless silence and 
attention in which the large congregation bent forward, 
and gazed and heard. No doubt, it was one of Dr Park's 



from A rchiepiscopal Churches. 1 09 

very best appearances : not every day could any preacher 
be sure of getting so thoroughly into the spirit of his dis- 
course, and warming up to that true emotion which can- 
not be counterfeited. But I thought then, and think yet, 
that I never was more impressed by any preacher. And 
when, early in 1854, he was removed from the charming 
but retired valley in Dumfriesshire to the academic shades 
of St Andrews, it was matter of general congratulation 
that he had found a charge worthy of his great powers. 

But Dr Park was much more than a great preacher. 
He was one of the most accomplished men in Scotland. 
Only the engrossing duties of the sacred profession hin- 
dered his rising to fame as a poet, a painter, and a musician. 
His musical faculty was exquisite. His enjoyment ot 
high-class music was intense. He has left behind him 
much music of his own composition, some of which, it is 
to be hoped, will be published. And though, for obvious 
reasons, he would not in ordinary society touch the instru- 
ment, the few friends who have heard his inimitable 
performance on the pianoforte, can testify that he had it 
in him to become one of the first of practical musicians. 
Only once the writer heard him, ten years ago. Beet- 
hoven was at that time his favourite composer : and he 
played much of his music with perfect skill and great 
gusto. Landscape-painting he had much enjoyment in : 
I remember his saying that he thought the happiest pos- 
sible life was that of a landscape-painter. He spoke of 
the more thorough appreciation of natural beauty which 
such a one has, through his eye being trained to remark 



no Presbyterian Sermons 

all the details of scenery. Two or three charming songs 
are all that has been published of Dr Park's poetical vein ; 
but these, and many passages scattered through his ser- 
mons, show that in him the poet had been born, though 
the force of circumstances hindered his development. 

Here is his volume of Lectures and Sermons. Dr Park, 
I believe, had published nothing during his life ; and 
this book was elicited by the strong desire expressed 
by many, after his sudden death, that some little portion 
of the material to which they had listened might be 
preserved and perpetuated. In most cases, such dis- 
courses would be placed at a disadvantage through not 
being prepared for the press by their author. But Dr 
Park wrote with such elaborate care, that probably he 
would not have desired to alter a word of these composi- 
tions. And the volume has had the advantage of being 
edited by Dr Tulloch, the accomplished and eloquent 
Principal of St Mary's College, St Andrews. 

What are the characteristics that strike one, now we 
can deliberately read the sermons ? Voice and manner, 
with all their power, are gone : and doubtless the sermons 
of every great preacher lose very much in losing these. 
Losing these, many sermons lose just what vivified them. 

Well, there is a certain massive force of mind, that 
impresses one everywhere in this book. Here and there, 
you find the scruples of well-meaning weak people 
brushed aside with a certain impatient contempt. As for 
instance, speaking of the use of the Lord's Prayer : 



from Archiepiscopal Churches. 1 1 1 

I make these remarks partly because some of us may have heard 
the use of this prayer objected to on the pretence that the name of 
Christ Himself is not in it. But surely of all fastidious scruples 
about not having the mere name of Christ in everything, that is one 
of the least defensible. Why, my friends, it was Christ Himself who 
authorised us to use this prayer : and therefore we cannot use it in- 
telligently at all but in His name, as by His authority. 

The writer, who had been accustomed to regard the 
objection thus indicated to the use of the Lord's Prayer as 
an extraordinary instance of vulgar wrong-headedness, 
learned to think differently of it on finding that it was 
esteemed as of force by Archbishop Whately. But a 
wonderfully clever man may doubtless sometimes think 
wrong. 

Something analogous maybe found at p. 185, speaking 
of the laws of nature : and at p. 189, speaking of Fatalism. 
At p. 324 there is a sly hit at a certain great Church : 

One commentator says : It means that you should make friends 
in the Church by paying them money for admission to Christian 
privileges, which they call everlasting habitations ; and you may 
readily guess where that commentator comes from. 

Then there are occasional little bits of exquisitely 
beautiful and correct description. Take this as a speci- 
men : 

"Also by watering" (that is, by the change of its vapour into 
water) "He wearieth the thick cloud." Again how beautiful! 
You must have often marked that, my friends. You have seen the 
thick black cloud, hanging almost like a solid wall in the sky: and 
yet, as the still, vapoury-looking streams of rain fell from it, it grew 
wearied as it were, and was gradually worn out from the face of the 
heavens. 

And then again, "He scattereth his bright cloud." You have 



112 



Presbyterian Sermons 



seen that, too, when after heavy rain, on some warm summer day 
especially, the weather clears again, and bright fleecy clouds are 
floating in the deep-blue sky, but are soon broken up into shining 
fragments, and little films, and gold and silver, which at length 
gradually disappear like flakes of flame dissolving in the air around 
them. 

Touches of tenderness here and there. Take this : 

There is a rest for both the body and the soul, which may be well 
compared to sleep — gentle, reviving, and refreshing sleep ; pain and 
care and anxiety are over, for both, for ever. The aching head shall 
never more be vainly laid on a restless pillow. The anxious mind 
shall never more count the hours as they strike, and wish perhaps 
that death itself would come at last to end the weary waking. The 
gentle time of God's own peace hath closed over the stormy night, 
and soul and frame, although in different ways, partake the welcome 
blessing. 

You see the well-read man at every turn ; and there 
are many instances of that liberality which comes of know- 
ledge and thought. I have a friend, a very clever friend, 
well known to many delighted readers, who said (in 
print) that Heaven, according to the Calvinistic theology, 
would be as empty as Edinburgh in September. And 
anything emptier, truly, can hardly be. I wish Shirley 
would read pp. 266-7. I & ye DUt tne ^ ast sentence: 

Yea, we hope to meet with there, not merely many of those from 
whom we differ in opinion here, but with many a one for whom at 
present we have far stronger fears : we hope to meet with many a 
poor prodigal and many an erring sister there, whom in our hard- 
heartedness, or in our despair, we had given over as lost for ever : 
we believe that among the happiest of all heavenly meetings shall 
such a meeting be. 

Amen ! amen ! 



from Archiepiscopal Churches. 113 

Save in such bursts of kindliness and hopefulness, there 
is no deviation from the ordinary Scotch orthodox theo- 
logy, — which, let us be thankful, is now generally kindly 
and hopeful. Dr Park seems to have had no peculiar 
views. Yet the hearty recognition, at p. 189, of the great 
Christian festival of Christmas would doubtless offend some 
good people who think it right to do honour to the birth- 
day of the Queen, but think it sinful to remember the. 
birthday of the Redeemer. And the strong expression of 
reverence for the material church at pp. 268-9, would 
probably offend (I trust it will heartily) those Scotchmen 
who walk into a place of worship with their hats stuck on 
their wrong heads ; and who judge such a place suitable 
for the drinking of tea, the eating of cookies, the making 
of jocular speeches, and the applause of umbrellas com- 
mingled with that of feet. 

Let it be said here, that it is inexpressibly irritating and 
mortifying, visiting Glasgow Cathedral, to witness a mul- 
titude of boors walking about its grand interior with their 
hats stuck on their heads. Nave, choir, Lady Chapel, are 
pervaded by these unutterably offensive beings. Why do 
not the Glasgow magistrates, who ought to be intelligent 
men, try to enforce decency in their great church ? Some 
months ago, the writer spent a spare hour in Glasgow, in 
the Cathedral. Two human beings entered the choir, 
each with his hat on his head. Only three were in that 
place. So the writer, embracing his opportunity, ap- 
proached the human beings, and said, in kindly tones, 
" Will you be so very kind as to take off your hats ? You 



H4 Presbyterian Sermons 

don't know how painful it is to many people to see people 
with their hats on in church." The beings confusedly 
took off their hats, and moved a few yards off. There 
they conversed together, and recovered heart. Then they 
firmly stuck their hats on again, and regarded the writer 
with looks of defiance. What could one do ? You can't 
make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. You cannot make 
a vulgar offensive cad conduct himself as a gentleman. 
Yet it is comforting to think that, even in Scotland, a hat 
on a head, in church, is an unmistakeable sign. It marks 
either the ignorant blockhead, or the flippant vulgarian. 
Happy for the two beings at Glasgow Cathedral that I 
was not the Emperor of Russia, and that they were not 
my subjects. For then, wisdom would have been added 
to them by the subtraction of epidermis. 
This is my last quotation : 

Antiquarians, searching among the old tombs of the Etrurian 
kings, have told us that, when they opened for the first time one of 
these receptacles of royalty, they beheld with astonishment (through 
the hole in the wall, and amidst the dimness of the sepulchre), the 
figure of a monarch seated upright upon a throne, in magnificent 
robes, and with a circlet of shining gold upon his head ; but only 
for a moment, only for a moment ! For, whenever the light and 
air entered, the mummy suddenly began to shake, and slowly 
crumbled down in dust upon the ground, as if the thing were 
ashamed that the light of heaven should behold in it so wretched 
a mockeiy of long-departed greatness. 

I do not quote the analogy traced. But is not that 
vividly graphic ? 

Now let us turn to that ablest, gentlest, simplest, 



from Archiepiscopal Churches. 1 1 5 

kindest of Scotch Churchmen, who served in one metro- 
politan cathedral church, and who now rests under the 
shadow of another. 

I wish exceedingly that I could persuade all who shall 
read this page to carefully read Dr Robertson's posthu- 
mous volume of Sermons and Expositions. And most 
earnestly I wish that in perusing the hearty and graceful 
memoir by the accomplished incumbent of Monifieth, 
each reader would understand that every word said in Dr 
Robertson's praise is to be construed literally. In Scot- 
land, you may not unfrequently find preachers of the 
smallest possible merit, described in print as among "the 
most eminent members of the Church." But when Mr 
Young speaks of his friend, he says less than he might. 
In some respects, Dr Robertson was unquestionably the 
first of Scotch theologians. And heartily as Mr Young 
sets forth his merit, you may see, all through the memoir, 
a certain reserve, which testifies the writer's resolution 
not to outrun the reader's sympathy, or incur the faintest 
suspicion of extravagance. He has thoroughly succeeded. 
Seldom will you find a more touching story of a hard 
student's uneventful life. 

There is a little Prefatory Note, written by one who 
above all others is desirous that these discourses be justly 
appreciated. Mrs Robertson says : 

The sermons have been printed exactly as they were left by their 
author, with the exception of a few inconsiderable verbal changes. 
In reading and judging of them, it should be kept in remembrance 
that none of them were written with a view to publication- that 



1 1 6 Presbyterian Sermons 

they were laid aside immediately after being preached, and never 
revised, or altered in any way. 

Then comes the memoir, extending to 74 pages. Then 
some discourses written while incumbent of a country 
parish in Forfarshire. Next, some written while incum- 
bent of Glasgow, and preached at the Cathedral -, finally, 
some Thoughts and Expositions designed to have been 
wrought into a solid theological work. 

John Robertson was born at Perth, in April 1824. 
He was the only child of his mother, and she was soon 
left a widow. Robertson came from the same humble 
rank of society which has yielded many of the greatest 
Scotchmen. He was a wonderfully precocious and indus- 
trious boy, never joining in the sports of other children. 
At school, he gained several friends, whose influence was 
of value to him as he grew up. He soon became an 
admirable classical scholar, and a first-rate mathematician, 
while his acquaintance with English literature was great, 
and his knowledge of French such that he read Moliere 
as easily as his own tongue. Having acquired the reputa- 
tion of a prodigy at Perth, he proceeded to the University 
of St Andrews, where, in every department of study, 
Robertson was easily first. Soon after his entering the 
University, his mother died, and he was left with hardly 
a relation in the world. His modesty was equal to his 
merit, and disarmed all envy : the simple, cheerful, un- 
pretending student, who carried off all attainable honours, 
was universally beloved. Before taking orders, he had 
laboured hard to form a good English style : and such 



from Archiepiscopal Churches. 1 1 7 

was his maturity of mind, that the crudeness and extra- 
vagance which generally deform the earlier sermons of 
those who ultimately prove the best preachers, never 
appeared in him. A fact is stated as to Robertson's 
appointment to his first living, which will seem strange to 
English readers. The patronage of Mains and Strath- 
martine belongs to the Crown. But when the people of 
a Scotch parish, with something like unanimity, petition 
the Crown in favour of anyone they please, the Crown 
almost invariably presents to the living the man of their 
choice. So when a vacancy occurred, the people of 
Mains and Strathmartine appointed a committee (it may 
be presumed) of their wisest men, and these desired to 
hear Mr Robertson preach. 

After making careful inquiries, the committee of the congregation 
of Mains requested Mr Robertson to preach before them ; and ac- 
cordingly he preached by arrangement, forenoon and afternoon, in 
the parish church of Liff, where the committee were present to hear 
him. The forenoon sermon delighted the committee. During the 
interval, one of the members of the congregation at Liff, who knew 
Mr Robertson, congratulated him, telling him the impression he 
had produced, and that the committee were particularly pleased 
that he had used no paper. "Well," he said, " I am so glad you 
have mentioned this, for I am determined that I will accept no 
parish with an understanding that I am to use no paper. I am 
quite prepared to repeat the afternoon discourse ; but I shall now 
read it, that the deputation may not be misled in any way. " It 
was a characteristic instance of honesty and integrity. Fortunately 
for themselves, and the parish they represented, the deputation from 
the Mains liked the afternoon sermon also, though it was read ; and 
Mr Robertson was forthwith recommended to the Home Secretary 
as the choice of the parishioners of Mains. 

For the enlightenment of the Saxon reader, Mr Young 



1 1 8 Presbyterian Sermons 

should have explained what the rustic Scotchman means 
by using paper : though the sense may be gathered on 
a diligent perusal of the passage. To use paper, means to 
take your manuscript sermon with you to the pulpit and 
read it to the congregation. To use no paper, means that 
either you preach extempore, trusting to the inspiration 
of the moment for the words in which to express what 
you have previously thought out 5 or that you write your 
sermon and commit it laboriously to memory, and then 
go and repeat it as though it were spoken extempore. In 
former days, the prejudice against the paper was extreme, 
especially in the West of Scotland ; and almost all clergy- 
men repeated their sermons from memory. Growing 
intelligence has removed or abated that prejudice: and 
most of the Scotch clergy now use the paper freely. 

Robertson was very popular in his country parish. The 
Scotch peasantry are commonly so well educated, that 
most of them can in some degree appreciate good preach- 
ing : and the frank, kindly manner of the new minister 
gained the hearts of his parishioners. Like most of the 
wisest, best, and most efficient ministers of the Scotch 
Church, he was a silent member of the Church Courts : 

He seldom spoke more than a few words in the Assembly, and 
in church courts at all times he preferred to leave the speaking to 
others. 

This is how he prepared his sermons. Not that it will 
be of the least use as a rule for other preachers. For 
each man's mind is a machine with its own peculiar 
likings, and must be worked in the way that suits itself: 






from Archiepiscopal Churches. 119 

His ordinary method of preparing for the pulpit was, after select- 
ing a text, to think over it during the greater part of the week, 
never losing sight of it when going about his ordinary parochial 
work, or even when engaged in conversation the most remote from 
the train of thought he was pursuing. Then, when the subject was 
fully arranged in his mind, he sat down to write, very often not 
until Saturday morning. There was often a difficulty with the first 
few sentences, which he would arrange and re-arrange many times; 
but when once fairly commenced, he wrote with great ease and 
rapidity, seldom altering a word ; and it was his custom not to stop, 
if possible, until he had finished his discourse, as he was accustomed 
to say that those sermons were best which he had completed at a 
sitting. 

And this is how he preached : 

He had few of those gifts and graces of oratory which make a 
powerful though transient impression on the multitude. He used 
very few gestures, and those he did employ were neither energetic 
nor graceful. He read with considerable closeness ; and, above all, 
his voice, though good, was neither sonorous nor powerful. And 
yet, wherever he went, particularly when he preached to an intel- 
lectual and cultivated audience, he produced an impression not to 
be forgotten, which was confirmed and strengthened the more fre- 
quently he was heard. 

He was fond of rural pursuits, and took great delight 
in his garden and his flowers. Repeated offers of further 
preferment failed to withdraw him from his beloved 
country parish. But at length, in 1858, he accepted the 
important charge of First Minister of Glasgow : and at 
the age of thirty-four, received from the University of 
St Andrews the degree of D.D. His duty, besides the 
pastoral care of a large parish, was to preach twice each 
Sunday at the Cathedral Church, whose beauty was a 
never-failing delight to him. 



120 Presbyterian Sermons 

One unfailing source of admiration and delight to Dr Robertson 
was the venerable and beautiful Cathedral church. He had always 
an eye for architectural beauty and grandeur, and felt himself at 
once elevated and solemnised by the contemplation of it. He was 
proud of the noble structure which he was privileged to call his 
own church, and witnessed during his ministry, with the most lively 
interest, its gradual restoration. He saw it almost every week grow- 
ing in beauty, as one magnificent stained glass window after another 
was inaugurated, till at last the work was completed, and he found 
himself surrounded by a "dim religious light;'' and though he was 
by no means so easily reached through the ear as through the eye 
he was not insensible to the singular charm of the singing in the 
Cathedral, where the sound is so refined by the lofty roof and 
towering pillars, and where the harmonies seem to gain some 
strange hidden power to arrest and satisfy the listening ear. 

But Dr Robertson's day of duty was to be brief. Re- 
peated attacks of heart-disease laid him aside from much 
of his beloved work; and in the autumn of 1864, .in the 
hope that a lengthened period of rest might restore him 
to health and duty, he went to St Andrews, to the house 
of his father-in-law, Dr Cook, Professor of Church His- 
tory in St Mary's College. But the restoration was not 
to be. And on January 9, 1865, he died, not having 
reached the age of forty-one. The grief of those among 
whom he laboured, and of all who heard him, was true 
and deep, and he did not leave a single enemy. 

The funeral day was the 14th of January 1865, the last day of the 
second week of the new year. It was one of those sombre gloomy 
days so common in our climate, and there was something in the 
feelings of those who assembled to pay the last tribute of respect to 
the departed in harmony with the aspect of nature. Many had 
come from great distances to be present — from Glasgow, from 
Dundee, from Perth. In St Andrews, the professors of both col- 



from Archiepiscopal Churches. 121 

leges in their robes, and the students in their gowns, joined the 
funeral procession, thus distinguishing and honouring the memory 
of one of the most gifted and able students of their ancient Uni- 
versity. Along the streets leading to the place of interment the 
shops were closed, and many of the townspeople were to be seen 
among the mourners. Around the grave, at the south-east corner 
of the burying-ground, to lower his honoured remains into their last 
resting-place, there met a group that suggested many touching 
memories ; his relatives by marriage were there, four of his elders 
from Glasgow and the Mains, his old teacher, a fellow-student, and 
one distant blood relation, the only one he had ; but he had gone 
to his heavenly Father's house, to join that great, loving, united 
family of whom our blessed Lord has said, "Whosoever shall do 
the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and my 
mother. " And so he was laid to his rest, not within the precincts 
of his own noble church, amidst the din and bustle of that great 
city where he had last held the ministerial office, but within the 
solemn shadows of what had once been a mightier and more re- 
nowned cathedral, with nothing now to disturb its stillness but the 
murmur of the great ocean that rolls beneath. 

Dr Robertson was a much younger man than Dr Park 5 
and a much more advanced theologian. And while Dr 
Park had doubtless done the best he was to do, those who 
mourned Robertson felt that no one could tell how much 
promise of further excellence was cut short by his death. 
His removal was a heavy blow, not merely to those 
nearly connected with him, but to all interested in theo- 
logical thought in Scotland. I have heard, him preach 
several times. He was calm, dignified, wonderfully pithy 
and forcible and clear. You felt that not a word in his 
discourse could be altered but for the worse. Manly 
strong sense, and perfect taste in the choice of language, 
were what struck one. And that slow circulation, which 
appeared latterly in a pulse of twenty-five, had doubtless 



122 Presbyterian Sermons 

something to do with his remarkable composure in preach- 
ing. Once I was in my own vestry before service, with 
Robertson, who was to preach. I remarked how calm 
he seemed, and contrasted his coolness with the extreme 
nervousness of a yet more distinguished preacher, who 
had taken the same duty in the same church a few days 
before. " O," said he, with a smile, " I don't know 
what to feel nervous means ; but that is because I am 
crass — Boeotian ! " The simple beauty of his prayers was 
remarkable. Each minister of the Scotch Church has to 
prepare these for himself ; and it is frankly to be admitted 
that occasionally they may be found very bad. Robert- 
son's were evidently, in great measure, very carefully 
composed. His opinion was very decidedly in favour of 
a partial liturgy. Here are his own words : 

It would be a great pity and a great loss were the liberty of free 
prayer to be withdrawn : but I have stated from this pulpit more 
fully than I can do now, that, in my judgment, the reasons in favour 
of a partial liturgy are quite unanswerable. It seems an evil, cer- 
tainly, that, in respect of what is so solemn and important as the 
expression of their feelings and desires before God, a congregation 
should be entirely at the mercy of a man who may be narrow- 
minded or unsympathising, or deficient in sense or taste, or per- 
haps, however generally well fitted for the duty, not at the time in 
a frame of mind for happy utterance. Very beautiful devotional 
expressions may sometimes indeed flow unpremeditated from the 
heart ; but it can hardly be denied that, as a rule, our public 
prayers, in order to be really good — that is to say, connected, well 
expressed and solemn, as well as suitable to the wants of an 
assembled body of men — would require to be at least as carefully 
prepared as the sermons. It seems hard to understand why it 
should be thought more necessary to study carefully beforehand the 
words we are to address to our fellow-creatures than those we are to 



from Archiepiscopal Churches. 123 

address to our Maker. And I may add, that if this anxious pre- 
paration is requisite, and that, too, in a kind of composition which 
all men of taste and sensibility find very difficult, two sermons a 
week, and four or six prayers, are more than any ordinary man can 
continue to produce. 

Mr Young gives no account of Dr Robertson's appear- 
ance. He had a very pleasant face : large and extremely 
animated eyes : good features, and a dark complexion. 
Nothing could be more natural and unaffected than his 
entire address : nothing more genial and kind. He kept 
up a thorough acquaintance with all kinds of literature. 
Doubtless religion had much to do with his unruffled 
amiability and goodness j but there was a noble founda- 
tion to build on, in a nature from which all bitter and 
malignant feeling seemed to have been entirely excluded 
from the beginning. Let me sum up what I have to 
record of him, by saying what (unlike a certain con- 
spicuous Anglican clergyman) he never would have said 
of himself, that he was a great and good man. Read his 
volume carefully, and you will think so too. 

You may likewise read another volume called Pastoral 
Counsels, published by him a very little while before he 
died. Unlike ordinary sermons, you will iind Dr Robert- 
son's remarkably readable. He certainly wrote as though 
remembering Sydney Smith's great principle, that every 
style is good except the tiresome. Dr Robertson is never 
tiresome. He leads one through tracts of thought so 
difficult, that in other hands they would have been re- 
pulsive : yet interest never flags. And if you read a dis- 
course on Sunday, in the Pastoral Counsels, another on 



124 Presbyterian Sermons 

Places and Forms of Worship, another on Martha and 
Mary, or Religious Diversities, and another on Progress, 
you will find specimens of the most advanced religious 
thought now current in Scotland. 

It is difficult to select extracts from Dr Robertson's 
sermons. They are so evenly good, and their merit lies 
so much in the sustained elevation of each as a whole. 
Yet let us take a few lines from a sermon, full of pathetic 
beauty, on Jairus' Daughter. 

But his growing trust receives a terrible blow. While the Lord 
is still conversing with the woman, tidings arrive. " There came 
from the ruler's house certain which said, Thy daughter is dead, 
why troublest thou the Master any further?" The great change 
had taken place. She had entered that unknown world, from 
within whose mysterious portals no human tears nor human prayers 
can bring back a friend. What an awful event is death ! How 
strange and solemn the alteration it produces ! There may be 
little outward difference to distinguish the last moment of sinking 
life, from the first moment after the soul has departed. Yet what 
a real, what a mighty change ! Last moment there was a living 
spirit here, this moment there is nothing but unprofitable clay ; 
more beautiful, perhaps, than it was before, beautiful in its marble 
paleness and statue-like repose, but beautiful with a beauty no 
longer of this world, a sad and touching beauty that moves to tears. 
Men feel that they are in a presence in which it behoves them to 
tread softly, and speak in whispers. 

Mature and admirable as Dr Robertson's early sermons 
are, there is no doubt that his mind had grown, when he 
wrote those preached at Glasgow Cathedral. Or if some 
may object to its being said that the manifest change in 
some of his theological views is an improvement, as growth 
is, it may at least be said that the whole man had moved 



from Archiepiscopal Chtirches. 125 

to another position. You see how the spirit of the age 
had affected one of the sharpest observers of the progress 
of human thought. There is a sermon on False Views of 
the Nature of God, in which there are many passages 
setting forth views identical with those in a famous para- 
graph of Mr John Stuart Mill. 

If you attempt to answer, or rather to silence, these questions by 
the reply, that righteousness, goodness, and mercy, as they exist in 
God, or rather as they are said to exist in God, are something 
wholly different, not only in degree, but in kind, from righteous- 
ness, goodness, and mercy as they exist in man, then, indeed, you 
may so far gain your object, but it is at a terrible cost ; you may 
silence the sceptic, but it is by an argument which would put an 
end not only to scepticism, but to faith, — which would put an end 
to all theology, whether natural or revealed, to all possibility of 
any knowledge of God. 

You may tell me that though God is often spoken of in common 
language as having hands and eyes and other bodily parts, He has 
not such bodily parts really, but that the language is a mere accom- 
modation to our human way of speaking. You may tell me this, 
and this I can understand, without its being implied, that we have, 
and can have, no real knowledge of God. You may go higher ; — 
you may tell me that when we speak of the Divine understanding 
there is much in this language too that is mere accommodation to 
our human weakness : and that God has a cognition of His works, 
which must be so far different in kind from that which is open to 
the human intellect, I can imagine also, and yet that God may be 
known in a real sense. But if you tell me that mercy and goodness, 
and the other moral attributes of the Most High, are wholly and 
essentially different from those in man which are known by the same 
names, then I cannot see how religion is to be preserved, — how 
God can be known at all, — how I can even be sure that there is a 
God, — above all, how I can possibly be in fellowship with Him — 
how my spirit can have true communion with His Spirit, — how I 
can be in any living relation to Him as a spiritual being. 

From a noble sermon on " That was the true light 



126 Presbyterian Sermons 

which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," 
these extracts are taken : 

In the first place, I do not think that as Christians we are at all 
required either to ignore or to undervalue the good there may lie 
beyond the pale of our own faith. We are not bound to say that 
what are apparently good actions are evil, and must be so, when 
done by heathens or unbelievers ;' that what seems to be noble is 
really nothing but splendid sin ; and what seems to be just and 
true, only the mask which Satan puts on to disguise himself when 
he would pass for an angel of light. On the contrary, we are at 
liberty to hold, I may say we are required to hold, the very oppo- 
site. Wherever there is anything that is apparently good and noble 
thought or felt or done by man, we are not to try to make out that 
it is not good and noble at all, but has only the delusive appear- 
ance of being so ; we are to admit that it is what it looks ; we are 
to rejoice in the light that shineth even in dark places ; we are to 
trace it to its origin in the Sun of righteousness ; we are to say with 
grateful hearts, " This, though they know it not ; this, though they 
may deny it ; this is of Christ our Lord ; by this He is testifying for 
Himself; by this He is claiming these people as His own ; by this 
He is declaring Himself the Lord and Head of them, as of all other 
human beings ; this good is of Him, and witnesses for Him ; and 
we are to be thankful for it, and give Him glory." 

The Anglican reader may contrast this teaching with 
that set forth in the thirteenth of the Thirty-nine Articles, 
which treats of Works before Justification ; and the Scotch 
reader may consider in what sense it is to be reconciled 
with the seventh section in Chap. XVI. of The Confession 
of Faith, which speaks of Works done hy Unregenerate 
Men. The eloquent author proceeds : 

It seems to some to be detracting from the honour due to Christ 
when we venture to hold the liberal and hopeful views to which I 
have referred. When one ventures to think that there may be some 
good even beyond the pale of the Christian Church, — that perhaps 






from Archiepiscopal Churches. 1 27 

not all the millions of the heathen are lost, — that perhaps those of 
them who live humbly and earnestly according to the light they 
have may arrive at brighter light hereafter, and may join in the 
anthem which shall be raised by that great company which no man 
can number, gathered from all nations and kindreds and tribes and 
tongues, to Him of whom an apostle said, " Of a truth I perceive 
that God is no respecter of persons, but -in every nation he that 
feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him ; " 
when one ventures to hold such ideas, it seems to some that he is 
derogating from Christ's glory. It seems to me the very contrary 
is nearer the truth by far. Surely it is to exalt the Saviour greatly 
when one believes, with St John, that there is a light which is more 
extensive than Christendom ; and that this light, wherever it shines, 
is of Christ. I cannot see that it is possible to glorify Christ more 
than by claiming for Him that He is the author of all the good that 
is anywhere in the world. 

A passage on The Ministry of Reconciliation : 

Reconciling the world. Mark the liberality of the expression. 
Mark its comprehensiveness. Reconciling the world. As I said 
before, the apostle did not perplex himself practically in the vain 
attempt to arrive at definite, logically-bounded conceptions on those 
deep things of God, touching election and the like, on which much 
unprofitable discussion has often been bestowed, and which pro- 
bably in this world will never be unravelled. His view was that 
God's object and desire was to reconcile the world, Jew and Gentile 
— all men everywhere. People should be diffident in their judg- 
ments on such high matters as the decrees of the Almighty, and 
should remember the great possibility of error, the absolute impos- 
sibility of certain knowledge, in regard to them. But people need 
not be diffident in holding that all men are invited to become par- 
takers in the benefits of redemption. Our faculties go far enough 
to enable us to see quite clearly that that is what the Scriptures say 
in the most distinct terms, and the principle they always go upon 
even when it is not expressed. " God will have all men to be 
saved." So it is written, and the same thing is written in other 
words in a hundred other passages. And I do not believe that it 
is written because we do not know who the elect are, or, in other 



128 Presbyterian Sermons 

words, who those are whom God will have to be saved ; but I 
believe it is written because it is the simple truth, and I believe 
therefore I am to preach Christ to you freely, because Christ is 
free; — to you all, because it is the honest fact that He is offered to 
you all, and not for the reason that no one can tell to whom. 

There are two discourses on The Indwelling Christ, 
which treat a matter which would have been mystical in 
other hands ; but which Dr Robertson has made so clear, 
that whether you agree with him or not, you will cer- 
tainly understand him. The Thoughts and Erpositions, 
which form the second part of the volume, are full of 
original and ingenious thinking. But there is not space 
to give examples. Here is the last paragraph of a little 
paper on Peace : 

As I write, the evening darkens down, and I am forced to come 
to a conclusion. O Thou, who sendest night and peace upon the 
world, send peace, I pray Thee, into my heart, and the hearts of 
all I love ; but not the peace which cometh with darkness — that 
rather which cometh with the knowledge of Thyself, and faith in 
thy beloved Son, to whom, with Thee and the blessed Spirit, be 
honour, and praise, and glory, for ever. Amen. 

May I be permitted, closing this notice of sermons 
preached in the midst of a non-liturgical service at churches 
once archiepiscopal, to assure the Anglican reader that 
non-liturgical prayers may yet be very decorous ones? 
The days seem almost gone, in which the prayers in 
Scotch churches were dissertations, or statements of doc- 
trine and duty, spoken to the Almighty, but spoken at the 
congregation. A volume of Prayers for Social and Family 
Worship, the very first printed prayers authorised by the 



from Archiepiscopal CJmrches. 129 

Scotch Church, is in some degree the cause, but in a 
greater the consequence, of this improvement in taste. 
This volume, which is at least ligger than the Book of 
Common Prayer, is well worthy of being read. And a 
beautifully printed volume of Family Prayers has lately 
been issued by the same authority. Both these books of 
devotion, though bearing to be prepared by a large com- 
mittee of clergymen and laymen, are mainly the work of 
Dr Crawford, the learned Professor of Divinity in the 
University of Edinburgh. Dr Robertson took much in- 
terest in their revision, and furnished many valuable sug- 
gestions. If you look at the first of the Prayers For 
Sailors and Persons at Sea, you will find as happy an 
imitation of the true liturgical style of prayer as you are 
likely to see in any modern work. 

This Saturday, as the chill December afternoon was 
closing, in, and the light fading, I went v to see the graves 
of the two good men of whom I have been writing. 
They are not far apart. A tablet of red granite, sur- 
mounted by a little Gothic canopy, marks where Dr Park 
rests, in his own churchyard. And opposite his resting- 
place, built against the massive outward wall, through the 
arrow-slits in which there was the cold gray sea, there 
are two larger tablets, also of red granite, set in a lofty 
gabJe of freestone, surmounted by the cross (for we have 
outgrown fanatic prejudice), and bearing the I H S, which 
has sometimes proved so fatal to the peace of worthy 
Presbyterians, who probably would have had no objection 
to V.R. There sleeps the minister of Glasgow Cathedral, 



130 Presbyterian Sermons. 

taken away from great usefulness and greater hope. Of 
course, it is but a little sphere within which a clergyman 
of the Church of Scotland can be known or valued. All 
that we understand. But in these pages a Scotch clergy- 
man has sought to tell something of two of the most 
eminent of his class to some who, if they had known 
would have valued them. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CONCERNING BEARDS : BEING THOUGHTS ON 
PROGRESS, SPECIALLY IN SCOTLAND. 

THE edition of Friends in Council possessed by me, 
bears on its title-page the date 1852. The time 
at which I write is January 1866. It is therefore evident 
that less than fourteen years have passed since that book 
was published. A certain passage in it brings strongly 
before the thoughtful mind the fact, that great changes in 
ways of thinking and acting may come about in fourteen 
years. In things small and things great, inveterate pre- 
judices may be overcome in less than fourteen years ; and 
people may come to do things which once they would 
have said they never could do. Sensible and natural 
habits maybe adopted by individuals who seemed stiffened 
into rigid unchangeableness. That which Mrs Grundy 
once severely blamed, Mrs Grundy may be found to 
warmly approve. Here is the passage : — 

Milverton. Well, I think we do waste a good deal of time and 
energy to make ourselves ridiculous in the matter of beards. 

Lucy. But is nobody with me : Uncle, what do you say ? 

Dunsford. I cannot see, my love, why, in itself, any costume 
would not become a clergyman, which so many old divines (have 
,you ever noticed their portraits in my folios ?) look well in. 



132 Concern ing Beards : 



Lucy. I see you are all for beards : but then, if it would not be 
presumptuous in a girl like me to say so to such reverend company, 
are you not rather cowardly in not doing what you all think would 
save you so much trouble, and be so becoming ? 

Dunsford. What would be thought of it, dear Lucy, in the 
parish ? As it is, your mother often tells me that she is sure Mrs 
Thompson will say that I do things like no other person. 

Lucy. And you, Mr Milverton ? 

MlLVERTON. Why you see, my pet, I say a great many things in 
books which are not perhaps quite according to rule, and which I 
know the potent Mrs Thompson would pronounce against : and 
then I do a few odd things to please myself and have my way, and 
I cannot afford to do any more. Each of us has a certain amount 
of allowable eccentricity (some more than others) : I have no savings, 
and have indeed rather overdrawn than otherwise. Besides, authors, 
artists, players, are all an outcast race : my doing it would not 
further the matter : some very respectable, judicious, safe man must 
set the example. 

Lucy. I turn then, to Mr Ellesmere ? 

Ellesmere. Why you see, Miss Daylmer, I am a lawyer, and 
we lawyers love to cherish custom ; if we were to upset that, we do 
not exactly see what would happen. It might be that people would 
come to omit paying us the customary fees. Nevertheless, some day 
after a long vacation spent in the East, I am not sure that I shall 
not appear in court with a beard. You may be quite sure I shall 
not do this till I have secured what is called a competency. 

So you see that fourteen years ago, a daring lawyer 
durst not appear in court with a beard, till he had made 
himself independent of his profession : after that day, the 
stream of briefs would set to his chambers no more. 
Dunsford, the clergyman, dreaded what migbt be said in 
his parish, especially by Mrs Thompson. And even 
Milverton, who had written the praises of eccentricity, 
thought that to grow a beard would be rather too bold a 
step. Fourteen years ago. 



Being Thoughts on Progress. 133 

Now, Scotland in some things lags a little behind the 
comparatively bleak and desolate country that lies south 
of the Tweed and the Sark. We have our weather here 
a little later than they have it in England. If there be 
stormy weather in the region round London, stormy 
weather follows in a few days in the region round Edin- 
burgh. So with fair weather. The principle of the 
thing is expressed in the words, Fiat experimentum in 
corpore vili. We adopt our fashions in like manner : in 
dress, in the hour of dinner, in the style of entertaining. I 
do not mean to say that we imitate the English : but 
merely that somehow the wave takes longer to reach us. 
And in things more important than dress or entertain- 
ments, the case is so. The influence is in the air : and it 
affects people who are far apart, and who have no com- 
munication with each other. Thus, while many in the 
English Church are eager for a developed ritualism, and 
go in for incense, low and high masses, copes and chas- 
ubles, processions and cross-bearers,* there are many in 

* And thy Church, awaking from Her sleep, come glorious forth at 

length, 
And in sight of angels and of men display Her hidden strength : 
Again shall long processions sweep through Lincoln's minster pile : 
Again shall banner, cross, and cope, gleam through the incensed aisle* 
And the faithful dead shall claim their part in the Church's thank- 
ful prayer, 
And the daily sacrifice to God be duly offered there : 
And Tierce, and Nones, and Matins, shall have each their holy lay, 
And the Angelus at Compline shall sweetly close the day. 

— Dr Neale's Sequences, Hymns, and other Ecclesiastical 
Verses : p. 131. 



134 Concerning Beards : 

Scotland who are humbly aiming at a point which is not 
nearly so advanced as the point whence these ritualistic 
Anglicans took their departure. To kneel at public 
prayer, instead of standing or (to speak accurately) loung- 
ing : to stand at public praise, instead of sitting : to have 
the help of the organ in the services of the church : such, 
so far as I know, are the few and simple things which are 
aimed at by the ecclesiastical innovators of Scotland. And 
while some Anglican people are advancing with alarming 
speed in doctrinal matters, and breaking loose from the 
old moorings, a few Scotchmen, affected by a milder form 
of the same distemper (as cow-pox is to small-pox), have 
recently been heard to say that the Decalogue is abrogated, 
that the Jewish Sabbath is not obligatory on Christians, 
and that the creed signed by Scotch Divines might with 
advantage be a good deal shortened and perhaps a little 
loosened. 

From these facts I judge, that if beards are to be found 
in Scotland, even among the clergy of the Established 
Church, they are sure to be still more common in England, 
both among laity and clergy. And it may be esteemed 
as certain, that half the men under forty in this country 
do now wear beards. When I look from my pulpit each 
Sunday towards a seat of dignity, a high place in the 
synagogue, where sit three Professors of Divinity, the Head 
and two of the Professors of a famous college in a famous 
University, I remark that two of the three dignitaries, all 
of whom are ministers of the Scotch Church, appear in 
the native dignity of beard and moustache. And, to 



Being Thoughts on Progress. 135 

speak frankly, they look remarkably well. It has indeed 
been suggested, that one of those Doctors of Divinity, who 
is the head of the Jewish Mission of the Scotch Church, 
appears in a beard by way of compliment to the Race with 
which his mission is concerned. But the other has no 
such shadow of a pretext for difference from the common 
rule j and it is probable that his beard is there, merely 
because he deems it comfortable and decorous. Doubtless 
Dr Tulloch's dignified predecessors would be startled, if 
they might behold him. Yet it may be doubted whether 
among those who in departed days filled the chair of the 
bearded Principal, there could be found an abler or more 
amiable man. 

Surely Ellesmere may now go into court in his beard, 
without injuring his chances of the Great Seal. Surely 
Dunsford, no longer dreading Mrs Thompson, may now 
enter his church on a Sunday morning bearded. Most 
wonderful of all, doubtless Mrs Thompson now thinks it 
all right, nor has her attention distracted from her devo- 
tions by the clergyman's unwonted aspect. As for Milver- 
ton, that is nothing: for authors at all times have been 
allowed to do eccentric things. The point is, that now 
the wearing of a beard has ceased to be deemed eccentric. 
I have beheld a dean, not inferior in learning and elo- 
quence to any in the Anglican Church, preach in a long 
gray beard. And as I very seldom hear Anglican deans 
preach, I conclude from that experience that others may 
be found like the Dean of Canterbury. An English 
bishop did, indeed, a few years ago, caution his clergy 



136 Concerning Beards : 

against extravagance in the matter of hair : but the tide 
of events has wiped out his caution. For that is not an 
extravagance which no one deems such. A clergyman, 
with his heart in his work, would deny his taste for a 
beard or for anything else, if he found that a beard would 
hinder his usefulness in his parish. But the days have 
passed in which a man's parochial work would be either 
hindered or helped by the presence or absence of a beard. 
Yes, we in this country are in many ways wandering 
from the old paths. For better or for worse, we are 
drifting from the old moorings. It was a symptomatic 
fact, that the Duke of Argyle, at a public meeting in 
Glasgow, said, within these few days, that no man now 
believes all that is written in the Confession of Faith. 
Therein the Duke was wrong. I know men, more than 
one or two, who, after a careful study of that document, 
leave off by believing all that it contains. Doubtless 
there are in it things hard to be believed : but in stating 
these the Confession does merely state manifest facts, 
against which you may indeed shut your eyes, but which 
you will see to be there if you open them. But consider- 
ing that each minister of the Scotch Church signs that 
lengthy creed, and (I believe) all the ministers of the 
Free Kirk too, the Duke's statement was a strong one. 
It means that some thousands of educated Scotchmen 
have declared their belief in things they do not believe. 
And it looks very awkward, that such a statement, pub- 
licly made, should not have been very boldly or heartily 
contradicted. 



Being Thoughts on Progress. 137 

Then, ritually, there is a general upheaving. We build 
handsome Gothic churches now, instead of flat-roofed 
barns. The dissenters aim at spires. Stained glass is 
present wherever it can be afforded. Passages are laid 
with tiles of black and red. The Commandments may 
be read on the walls of some Scotch churches, in antique 
letters of gold on a ground of ecclesiastical blue. Within 
Scotch churches you may read the letters I H S. Crosses, 
of diverse shapes, surmount gables. The psalms may be 
heard, chanted in the prose version. When the writer 
once expostulated with a young divine as to his ritual im- 
provements, and asked what his covenanting forefathers 
would have said had they seen them, that young man, in 
tones that made the writer's blood run cold, used the 
awful words, ""Bother my covenanting forefathers !" In 
eight churches under the jurisdiction of the Presbytery 
of Glasgow, organs are either in use or in process of erec- 
tion. And there is even one parish church in Edinburgh 
where the prayers are read by the minister from a printed 
book, which is also in the hands of the congregation. 
The incumbent of that church, however, repudiates the 
charge of using a liturgy. Here are his own words, from 
the preface to his Prayer-book : — 

It may be proper to add, in order to prevent misconception, that 
these prayers are not designed to form a ritual in any sense : the 
author leaving to himself full liberty to add, omit, or alter, as he 
may judge convenient, and not attempting to interfere with the 
liberty of anyone who may occasionally assist him in conducting 
public worship. He desires that the following prayers may be re- 
garded as strictly aids to devotion for himself or for any of his 



138 Concerning Beards : 

brethren who may choose to avail themselves of them, either as to 
ideas, arrangement, or language, as they have an unquestionable 
right to do, if they think proper, to any extent.* 

But while Dr Lee is careful to declare that his Prayer- 
book does not set forth a liturgy, and while he gives no 
hint that he judges a liturgy to be a desirable thing, there 
are other Scotchmen who speak out more plainly. Dr 
Robertson, of Glasgow Cathedral, has put on record his 
conviction, that " the reasons for a partial liturgy are quite 
unanswerable." I have quoted his words at length on 
another page.f And just this morning, I received a 
volume by Lord Kinloch,j a most able, amiable, and 
pious Scotch judge, an elder of the Church of Scotland, 
a man of clear head and cool judgment, in which, 
among other things indicating a great change in Scotch 
ways of thinking, you may read as follows : — 

There are many obvious advantages in a Book of Common 
Prayer. There is therein a great security against feebleness, 
inappropriateness, or eccentricity, in devotional exercises. There 
is a barrier raised against individual peculiarity and ambitious 
rhetoric. There is secured, in every church you enter, an edifying 
and ennobling act of worship. The very familiarity of the coming 
prayer makes it easy for the mass to fall into the current of devo- 
tion : whereas, in the case of extemporised supplication, the novelty 
of the utterance is an impediment to sluggish souls, and is apt of a 



* A Presbyterian Prayer- Book and Psalm-Book : or, Aids to De- 
votion in Public and Social Worship. By Robert Lee, D.D., 
Professor of Biblical Criticism in the University of Edinburgh, and 
Minister of Greyfriars. Edinburgh: 1 863. 

+ At page 122 of the present volume. 

% Studies for Sunday Evening. By Lord Kinloch. Edinburgh : 
1 861. 



Being Thoughts on Progress. 139 

conscious suppliant to make a mere vacant auditor. There is a 
direct participation in the devotional exercise on the part of the 
congregation which meets the grand aim of public worship, and 
which no truly devout heart should find monotonous or unimpres- 
sive. There is a bond of union in jointly uttering the same audible 
expressions before God, which is but feebly imaged in united listen- 
ing to words from without. But, on the other hand, the very nature 
of a liturgy, as a prescribed form of worship, beyond which no one 
can go, involves a want of accommodation to special exigencies. 
With the great mass there is a risk of the whole service becoming 
a vain repetition. A well-framed liturgy may be adapted to the 
dull routine of every-day piety, but it is comparatively inefficacious 
either for times of declension or seasons of revival. It may preserve 
an equable and chastened devotion, but has nothing to startle the 
careless, to warm the cold, to quicken the dead. But why 

SHOULD THERE NOT BE A COMBINATION OF THE BENEFITS OF 

EITHER system : of the general supplication with the occasional 
prayer : of the worshipping assembly with the interceding pastor : 
of the fixed form with the varying aspiration : of the devout har- 
mony of the congregation with the sole earnest utterance of the 
leader in Israel ? 

The days have been, in which one of the most eminent 
of Scotch elders would not have been found to utter so 
frankly these judicious and moderate views. But Lord 
Kinloch has more to say : here is something on the once 
bitterly-discussed question of Presbytery and Prelacy : — 

It is permitted, as I think, to an individual Christian to perceive 
advantages on either side in rival systems of church polity, such as 
raise a strong impression that a combination of the systems would 
operate more advantageously than their isolated action. There is 
an element in episcopal government and the distinction of ranks in 
the clergy which exhibits a striking analogy to the principle which 
pervades the divine government of the universe : for this is carried 
on by degrees and orders, subordination and superiority, reaching 
from the meanest of God's messengers up to the archangel nearest 
the throne. There is a permissible and wholesome ambition created 



T4-0 Concerning Beards 



by diversity of ranks. There is a quietness, and gravity, and con- 
centration of authority in episcopal rule which has much of the 
features of apostolic administration. Yet the system has serious 
defects. It hangs too much for its efficacy on individual character. 
Its quietness is occasionally somnolence. Its massive architecture 
is sometimes little more than ornamental. Heresy lurks undetected, 
or rears the head unchecked. A system is made a superstition, by 
force of its gorgeousness and ancient descent. There is a freedom 
in the very roughness of Presbytery : an energetic action in the 
intellect : a swift detection of error and abuse : an intercommuni- 
cation of spirit between clergy and laity: a bold publicity of 
discussion : a corresponding interest in the public mind : to which 
Episcopacy does not attain, or attains in a much inferior degree. 
Why should an union of the systems, in the best char, 
acteristics of each, remain an historic dream of the 
very chief of our reformers ? 

Lord Kinloch knows why: but the English reader 
does not. Here is the reason. Because each clergyman 
of the Scotch Church, at his ordination, must solemnly 
reply in the affirmative to this among other solemn ques- 
tions : — 

Are you persuaded that the Presbyterian government and dis- 
cipline of this Church are founded upon the word of God, and 
agreeable thereto : and do you promise to submit to the said 
government and discipline, and to concur with the same, and 

NEVER TO ENDEAVOUR, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, THE PREJU- 
DICE OR SUBVERSION thereof, but to the utmost of your power, 
in your station, to maintain, support, and defend the said discipline 
and Presbyterian government by kirk-sessions, presbyteries, pro- 
vincial synods, and general assemblies, during all the days of your 
life? 

Now, you must see that the man who, with all the 
solemnity of an oath, has said "Yes" to that question, 
cannot feel himself perfectly free to use any active means 



Being Thoughts on Progress. 141 

for episcopising the Church of Scotland : whatever private 
convictions he may reach on the comparative claims of 
Presbytery and Episcopacy. I do not judge others, in the 
matter of such oaths : but I confess that for myself, even 
if I thought (and I do not think) Episcopacy decidedly 
the better of the two, I see not how I could open my 
mouth to say so. Yet it is curious how easily the very 
best men take what appears to others the violation of a 
plain oath : of course, they see it differently. Dr Chal- 
mers, Dr Candlish, and the other eminent and good men 
who seceded from the Scotch Church in 1843, and founded 
the communion calling itself the Free Churchy had all 
solemnly answered " Yes" to the following question : — 

Do you promise that, according to your power, you shall 

maintain the unity and peace of this Church against error and 
schism, notwithstanding whatever trouble or persecution may arise ; 

and THAT YOU SHALL FOLLOW NO DIVISIVE COURSES FROM THE 
PRESENT ESTABLISHED DOCTRINE, WORSHIP,' DISCIPLINE, AND 
GOVERNMENT OF THIS CHURCH ? 

How these worthy men reconciled their secession from 
the Church with their obligation under this oath, I cannot 
in the least see. Yet who but a fool would call them 
perjured persons, who had broken their ordination vows ? 
I believe, as firmly as I believe anything, that they saw, 
to the satisfaction of their own minds, that they were free 
to take the step they did. Yet charges of perjury, violated 
oaths, broken ordination vows, and the like, are some- 
times bandied about in Scotland just now, in a fashion 
that shows great lack of sympathy, charity, honesty, and 



142 Concerning Beards : 

common sense in those who make them. If I find a 
man, at least as wise and good as myself, taking a course 
which I cannot see he is justified in taking, it is only fair 
to suppose that he sees what I do not. Yet there are 
those would drive out of the Scotch Church, and out ot 
the Anglican Church too, the best men in either, by vul- 
gar and malignant accusations of dishonesty and perjury. 

The following words of Lord Kinloch are interesting, 
because we find him making a statement which is sub- 
stantiaUy identical with one which caused a brief but 
furious uproar, when made by Principal Tulloch of St 
Andrews : — 

Great errors have unquestionably been committed in the con- 
struction of creeds and confessions. They have for the most part 
attempted too much : more of clearness of information on mysteri- 
ous topics, than God has allowed : more of defmiteness of statement 
on doctrinal points, than human intellect can accomplish. They 
have at times become snares for over-sensitive minds ; which sub- 
stantially value the doctrine, and yet cannot conscientiously adopt 
its precise form of expression. They have too frequently been made 
a theological argument against a particular heresy ; and have thrown 
in consequence the whole of Christian truth behind the shadow of a 
single dogma. By endeavouring to expand the truth, not merely in 
its general expression, but its minute ramifications, they have run 
into apparent inconsistencies ; such as always arise when a finite 
mind attempts to possess itself of the whole of its subject of con- 
templation. They are, many of them, works of great mental 
vigour : the products of gigantic intellect : composed by men both 
of piety and learning : a noble study, an illustrious monument. Vet 
it is always to be remembered that they are human compositions : 
liable to criticism as such : and not to be deferred to, when they 
contradict, or go beyond, the teaching of Holy Writ. It is to be 
wished that they more imitated the simplicity of their Divine model 
and were comprised in a few general propositions, expressed so 






Being Thoughts on Progress. 143 

clearly as to bear the undoubted stamp of orthodoxy : at the same 
time so comprehensive, as to be capable of being held along with 
avowed diversity in unessential points and collateral metaphysics. 

Upon the doctrine of the Atonement, we have words, 

true and wise : — 

To engage in idle discussions of our own intellect on the subject 
of the Atonement, its nature and necessity, and precise mode of 
operation, is a course full of peril to faith, both in its simplicity and 
stability. In regard to the Divine mysteries, it. is generally by 
limitation of range that we maintain clearness of perception. The 
simple Bible truth, which is seen clearly when steadfastly looked at 
by itself, becomes obscure and confused when followed out on all 
sides into the ramifications of human philosophy. It is in this way 
that systematic theology has at times been of injury to religion. 
The mind, which rested secure on one grand Scripture thought, has 
had its faith broken into difficulties and doubts, when carried into 
metaphysical expositions, which, because they dealt with subjects 
beyond human thought, could not but prove unsatisfactory ; and 
because they were the product of the finite endeavouring to scan the 
infinite, could construct a system of supposed completeness only by 
means of propositions, which produced reconcilement at the cost of 
apparent contradiction. 

Lord Kinloch has some striking remarks on Inspiration, 
setting forth somewhat advanced views on that subject. 
And those Scotchmen who would, if they could, " make 
a ghastly idol of the Sunday," find no countenance from 
the devout and enlightened judge : — 

To the great mass of those on whom is laid the duty of Sabbath 
observance, it is impracticable to maintain a whole day of unflagging 
spirituality of frame ; and to these there must necessarily come, and 
will come without impropriety, the interruptions of harmless con- 
verse, and kindly intercourse. Few things can be conceived more 
accordant with the conception of a hallowed day of rest than the 
enjoyment, under fitting limitations, of the pure air, and fair face of 
nature, in innocent domestic companionship, when the religious 



144 Concerning Beards : 

duties of the day shall have been accomplished. There is nothing 
to be found in Scripture to countenance a morose or gloomy observ- 
ance of the Sabbath. It is a Christian festival : to be observed by 
all with the cheerfulness proper to such. 

Let us be thankful that such wise and temperate notions 
are now held by almost all intelligent people in Scotland. 
For I can remember the day, on which a good clergyman 
said from the pulpit, that whenever, on a summer Sunday 
evening, he beheld the people of a certain Scotch town 
quietly and decorously walking on a great green expanse 
by the shore of the sea, he always thought of Sodom and 
Gomorrah, and prayed that fire might not fall from heaven 
to burn up the Sabbath-breakers ! And as a boy, there 
was nothing I believed more implicitly, than that it was 
a sin to take a walk on Sunday. How we have advanced 
since then ! There is now no part of the week pleasanter 
to me, nor enjoyed with more assurance that the enjoy- 
ment is lawful and right, than the hour after afternoon 
service on each Lord's day, when you may see a great 
part of the population of this ancient city quietly walking 
on the beach or the bent, and feeling an influence from 
all around them for which only the very hardened can 
fail to be the better. We all hold the value of the Shorter 
Catechism still : but we have come to interpret differently 
the following statement contained in that excellent trea- 
tise : — 

The Sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, 
even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful 
on other days : and spending the -whole time in the public and private 
exercises of God^s worship, except so much as is to be taken up in 
the works of necessity and mercy. 



Being Thoughts on Progress. 145 

Doubtless that last clause, which speaks of necessity and 
mercy, always served as a very wide back-door. But 
there were many parents who really tried to make their 
children spend the whole time in the public and private 
exercises above named : and who failed to discern that a 
decorous walk after church, and the enjoyment of domestic 
quiet in the evening, are most truly of the nature of God's 
worship, properly understood and rightly enjoyed. There- 
fore they made their children go to church, to services of 
enormous length, and without a vestige of interest for a 
child) and then they devoted the rest of the day to 
examining them in the Shorter Catechism. The natural 
effect was, to make the children hate both the Catechism 
and the Sunday as long as they lived. A word as to 
length of church services. While a Scotch sermon now, 
if preached by a good preacher, rarely exceeds half an 
hour in length, and the entire service lasts just an hour 
and a half, I remember the days when the sermon was an 
hour or more, and sometimes you had two of the fearful 
compositions at one service. Yes, it seems nearly as 
strange to me now as it will to an Anglican reader ; but 
many a time have I entered church at 11 a.m., and been 
present at a service lasting till 2 p.m. — three mortal 
hours ! And certain it was then as now, that the worse 
the preacher, the longer was the sermon sure to be. 

Now, what is the meaning of all the change which has 
been set forth ? 

Such as look favourably on the movement, reply, that 



1 46 Concerning Beards : 

it comes of a conviction that the Scotch Reformers cut 
down the church-service too far, and showed too great a 
spirit of contrariety to all that had gone before : and that 
the time has come when, without any peril to anything 
good gained at the Reformation, a better and more de- 
corous worship may be introduced. No doubt, the Scotch 
Presbyterian worship does look inexpressibly bare and 
bald to Christians of any portion of the Catholic Church 
out of Scotland. No doubt, the greater number of Scotch 
parish churches are disgraceful for ugliness and meanness. 
No doubt, it is a mockery to call by the name of music 
the sounds which in many churches take the place of 
praise. No doubt, one recalls with heaviness of heart the 
discourses which one has heard in the form of prayer. 
No doubt, Scotch public worship is capable of being much 
improved. It may be granted, indeed, that it is not the 
greatest work of the parish priest to improve his music or 
decorate his church ; and that you may train your parish- 
ioners to habits even better than those of silently asking 
God's blessing for a moment on entering church, and 
pausing for a moment's silent prayer after the blessing is 
pronounced, instead of instantly sticking on your hat and 
rushing out as though the building were on fire. But 
one may hope, that where much attention is given to the 
lesser proprieties of worship, all this is no more than a 
comparatively unimportant addition to great diligence in 
preaching and in pastoral work. On the other hand, 
nothing that concerns God's worship is unimportant : and 
side by side with diligent endeavours for the moral and 



Being Thoughts on Progress. 147 

physical improvement of his parishioners, a zealous clergy- 
man may well spend thought and pains on the improve- 
ment of the music in his church, or on breaking people 
(where he can) of walking into church with their hats on 
their heads. Some people talk as though in attending to 
the aesthetic, you must of necessity neglect what is ad- 
mitted to be a thousand times more important. Why 
spend money on a stained window, when there are mil- 
lions of Heathens who have got no Bibles ? Why think 
of church music when Infidelity is overspreading the 
land ? Such are the ordinary objections. But surely one 
need not neglect the greater duties, while giving some 
measure of care to the lesser. And abundant experience 
has shown that the man who suffers a slovenly neglect 
about his church and its worship, is just the man to 
neglect weightier things. " He which is faithful in that 
which is least, is faithful also in much." And the argu- 
ment from the Heathen, and the tide of Infidelity, goes 
too far. Why think of getting your clothes to fit pro- 
perly, or of painting your house, or selecting carpets of 
pleasing pattern, when there are the Heathen and the 
Infidelity ? 

So" much for the favourable way of looking at the 
Scotch ritual movement. There are less favourable ways 
of regarding it. In a recent debate in the Presbytery of 
Edinburgh, it was declared by a very good man, far ad- 
vanced in life, that it was his profound conviction that the 
ritual innovations (in conjunction, we presume, with the 
doctrinal uncertainty of sound) are of the instigation of 



148 Concerning Beards : 

the devil. It thus appears that a movement of which its 
worst enemies can say no worse than that it somewhat 
obliterates the differences between the Scotch and English 
national churches, originates in the worst possible quarter. 
One would say that no one has a right to say that if you 
differ from him you are inspired by the devil, unless his 
own infallibility is assured by special revelation. At the 
same time, I am not prepared to join in the severe stric- 
tures which have been made on the good man who said 
this. All evil is helped and perhaps inspired by the devil, 
no doubt ; and if you honestly think a movement tends 
to evil, you have a right to say that such is your opinion. 
Still, when we think a friend wrong, our desire ought to 
be rather to bring him right, than to hit him severely ; 
and it may be doubted whether, in telling an honest and 
earnest man that he is instigated by Satan, you are adopt- 
ing a course likely to conciliate and mend him. And a 
promise, publicly made, to pray for a man who differs 
from you, appears to imply, in a somewhat offensive 
way, that he must certainly be wrong and you certainly 
right. To publicly express a very unfavourable opinion 
of a fellow- creature, — even though that opinion be couched 
in the form of a prayer for him, — is not, generally, a 
friendly thing. And it may be doubted whether it is 
ever a purely Christian thing. 

But people who do not say that the desire for an organ, 
for kneeling at prayer and standing at praise, and even 
(as Lord Kinloch) for a partial liturgy, is inspired by 
Satan, are vet found to take up another ground of opposi- 



Being Thoughts on Progress. 149 

tion to it. They say that whatever improvement the 
Scotch Church service may be capable of, the ministers 
of the Scotch Church are precluded from even thinking 
of any change ; forasmuch as one of the questions they 
have all answered affirmatively at their ordination runs 
thus : — 

Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine contained 
in the Confession of Faith appoved by the General Assemblies of this 
Church, and ratified by law in the year 1690, to be grounded upon 
the word of God : and do you acknowledge the same as the confes- 
sion of your faith ; and will you firmly and constantly adhere there- 
to, and to the utmost of your power assert, maintain, and defend 
the same, and the purity of worship as presently practised 
IN this national church, and asserted in Act 15, Assembly 
1707, entitled " Act against Innovations in the Worship of God " ? 

On the strength of these words, I have heard a clergy- 
man who had introduced kneeling at prayer and standing 
at singing into his church, with the full approval of his 
congregation, denounced as a perjured person. Was he 
so? 

Well, unquestionably he was a very pious and exem- 
plary man in other things 5 and if he was indeed a violator 
of solemn vows in this matter, it was very unlike his 
ordinary walk and conversation. And further, he did not 
think himself perjured, even on this point ; for, when told 
of the grave accusation, he replied with a tranquil and 
amiable face, " That is rank nonsense ! " 

Let me confess, that I have never heard any innovating 
Scotch clergyman set clearly out the rationale of the way 
in which he reconciles his ritual innovations with that vow 
about maintaining the purity of worship as presently prac- 



150 Concerning Beards : 

Used in this national church. Such men, in my hearing, 
have either laughed at the charge, as one not deserving 
serious notice ; or have got angry and expressed indigna- 
tion at those who uttered it. But I suppose the ground 
that innovators would take up, if brought to book, would 
be this : that their changes and improvements do not 
affect the purity of worship as presently practised. What 
is designed by the vow in question, is the exclusion of 
superstitious rites and ceremonies, such as those laid aside 
at the Reformation. And it is naturally remarked, that 
some of those who are very bitter against the innovations 
now introduced, did not scruple to introduce innovations 
which pleased themselves : such as the singing of doxolo- 
gies and anthems, the ceasing to intone each line of the 
psalm before singing it, the abolition of public penances, 
such as I have myself seen in a Scotch parish church, the 
private celebration of the sacrament of baptism, and many 
such like. And it is specially curious that good men, who 
habitually break the law of the Church in the matter of 
baptism in private, and seem quite happy though so guilty, 
have been heard vehemently to accuse those of their 
brethren who have administered the Holy Communion in 
private, to persons unable to come to church from illness. 
Yet, in the nature of things, it seems infinitely more 
reasonable to dispense the latter sacrament in private than 
the former. And as for the law of the Scotch Church, I 
should be interested in knowing how any man of plain 
sense can evade the meaning of the following words from 
The Directory for the Publick Worship of God : — > 



Being Thoughts on Progress. 1 5 1 

Baptism is not to be administered in private places, or privately, 
but in the place of public worship, and in the face of the congrega- 
tion, where the people may most conveniently see and hear. 

Scotch Church-law makes no mention at all of instru- 
mental music, or kneeling at prayer, or standing to sing : 
in these matters there is nothing violated by the innova- 
tors but lengthened usage. But baptism of children in 
private is expressly forbidden. Yet excellent men, who 
systematically break the law about baptism without a pang 
of conscience, are ready with the howl of perjury against 
men equally excellent, who have brought organs into their 
churches. Let me say, that I believe the accusations of 
perjury are as injudicious as they are uncharitable. A 
timid man here and there may be bullied into concealing 
his tastes for an orderly worship : but a spirit of resistance 
is awakened in ten times as many, by the attempt to 
bully. The writer is a Scotch clergyman who has made 
no innovations in the worship of his parish church. Plenty 
of instrumental music has been in it, indeed : plenty of 
incense, masses, processions, and vestments of all colours 
and degrees. But that was centuries since : and the 
simple worship of the Scotch Church may now be found 
in it, untouched and unimproved. And if the writer 
meditated any change, there are venerable and wise men 
whose kind cautions, and dread of imminent evil, ex- 
pressed with a fatherly authority, would make him stop. 
But as for the accusations of perjury, one snaps the fingers 
at them. 

On Wednesday, December 27, 1865, the Presbytery of 



152 Concerning Beai'ds : 

Edinburgh was engaged, as it has often been before, in 
considering the case of that Edinburgh minister who has 
introduced printed prayers. The newspapers mention, 
that " there was an unusually large attendance," doubt- 
less both of members and of the public : so much so, that 
the Presbytery had to meet in that handsome hall where 
the General Assembly holds its sittings. Several times, 
within the last few years, have dense crowds in that hall 
shown the lively interest felt by many people in the whole 
question of innovations in worship. On this occasion — 

Mr Stewart rose to make the motion of which he had given 
notice in the following terms : — u Whereas the using of a book 
of prayers in the celebration of public worship is contrary to the laws 
and usage of this Church ; and whereas it is generally reported that 
this practice is followed by the Rev. Robert Lee, D.D., minister in 
the church of Old Greyfriars, and that, notwithstanding a judgment 
of the General Assembly, of date 24th May 1S59, ordering Dr Lee 
to discontinue the practice, and to conform in offering up prayer to 
the present ordinary practice of the Church, it is moved that a com- 
mittee be appointed to make all necessary inquiry as to the use of a 
book of prayers in the conducting of public worship in the church 
of Old Greyfriars, and to report, that the case may be dealt with 
according to the injunction of the last General Assembly." 

Mr Stewart, who is an estimable clergyman of more 
than forty years' standing, is too amiable and good a man 
to show much of polemical bitterness : yet he supported 
his motion in a speech of considerable keenness of temper. 
He lamented the infraction of 

that uniformity of worship which, till the days of Dr Lee, has been a 
distinguishing characteristic of our Presbyterian Church in Scotland 
— a form of worship at once pure, spiritual, and simple, which, 
though sneered at by some, has contributed most effectually to the 



Being Thoughts on Progress. 1 5 3 

spiritual welfare of our people — towards the promotion of that vital 
godliness which it is the great design of our holy religion to pro- 
mote, and which is at the same time calculated to guard against that 
mere formality in religion which is, alas ! too prevalent in the 
present day, and which, we believe, it is the tendency of set forms 
of prayer to increase and to strengthen. 

And he thus concluded : — 

Let us to-day show that, while we would hail with pleasure the 
announcement from Dr Lee that he was now ready to obey the laws 
and to obtemper the judgments of the Church, and to return to that 
form of worship to which he solemnly swore he would adhere, and 
to which while a minister at Arbroath, while a minister at Campsie, 
and to which for some time after he became a minister in Edinburgh 
he did adhere, and thus aid in promoting the peace of the Church, 
and not disturb it, as he is now doing, undermining the Church's 
influence, preventing her from presenting a united front to her 
enemies, and from putting forth her undivided energies towards the 
furtherance of that great cause for which she was established, and 
which it is designed she should further in the land and over the 
world. But, if otherwise — if to gratify hip own taste, or to pander 
to the tastes of some fashionables in our great cities — he disregards 
his ordination vows, sets the laws and usage of the Church at defi- 
ance — he must be prepared to abide by the consequences. If there 
be individuals within the pale of the Church of Scotland who have 
a conscientious preference for read prayers and a liturgical form, I 
would say to such, with the best feelings, let them join the Church 
of England, where they will find a venerable and approven liturgy, 
and not the spurious and irresponsible article which has been intro- 
duced of late into Greyfriars' Church. These are not the times 
when the laws and authority of our Church are to be allowed to be 
set at nought with impunity, when not only the outworks of our 
Zion are assailed by the innovating practices of Dr Lee and others, 
but when the very citadel itself is being attacked — when attempts 
are being made to shake the very foundations of our Zion — to un- 
dermine the pillar and ground of truth itself — when the great funda- 
mental articles of our most holy faith are called in question, are 
assailed, not by the open and avowed enemies of religion and of our 



154 Concerning Beards : 

Church, but by those whom we had been accustomed to regard as 
her ablest defenders, and who we thought would have sacrificed 
everything that was most dear and valuable on earth rather than 
have apostatised from the faith once delivered in its purity to the 
saints of old, and to which they had in the most solemn manner 
declared they would adhere — rather than have given their names 
and their influence to sentiments and views which, unless checked 
and put down by the authority of the Church, bid fair to sweep 
away that beautiful fabric which our venerable forefathers reared amid 
their tears and with their prayers, and after years of toil and suffer- 
ing unparalleled, left to us as a legacy to be by us transmitted un- 
impaired to our latest posterity — that Church which has hitherto 
proved such a signal blessing to the people of Scotland, which 
has been the grand bulwark of civil and religious liberty in our 
land, and which was designed to remain a perpetual testimony 
to the truth as it is in Jesus, amid surrounding infidelity, supersti- 
tion, and immorality, and to stand firm on the Rock on which her 
great Head founded her amid the ever-fluctuating waves of human, 
opinion. 

The apostates thus keenly censured, are doubtless Dr 
Norman Macleod of Glasgow, who has declared that 
while holding" the obligation of the Lord's-day, he has 
departed from the usual Scotch belief both as to the 
ground of its obligation and the manner of its due observ- 
ance j and Principal Tulloch of St Andrews, who had the 
boldness to declare that the Confession of Faith, though 
an admirable and venerable document, is the composition 
of uninspired men, affected by the usual influences which 
affect human beings. 

A remarkable speech was made by Mr Wallace, minis- 
ter of Trinity College Church, Edinburgh, in support of a 
motion to let Dr Lee alone. Mr Wallace is one of the 
ablest of the younger Scotch clergy ; and coming to 



Being Thoughts on Progress. 1 5 5 

Edinburgh a few years since to undertake the charge of a 
nearly empty church, he has crowded it with a large con- 
gregation. Some of the clergy have precisely reversed 
that process. Said Mr Wallace : — 

Now, I hold that the reading of prayers is not contrary to the 
law and usage of the Church ; and not only so, but has already been 
constructively authorised by the most competent of all judicatories, 
the General Assembly. I say, first of all, the reading of prayers is 
not contrary to the law and usages of the Church. I may be told, 
indeed, that it was so decided in Assembly 1859. But I am per- 
fectly entitled to plead that that decision misstated the law, and to 
express my conviction that were the Assembly better instructed, it 
would decide differently, the more especially that subsequent Assem- 
blies have, as I shall have occasion more fully to remark, virtually 
cancelled that decision by declining to enforce it. I repeat, then, 
that reading prayers is not contrary to the law and usage of the 
Church. I never heard of a law against a minister reading his 
prayers if he chose. The moment such a law is produced, and 
shown to me to have passed the Barrier Act and become law in 
a regular manner, I shall alter my opinion ; but not till then. As 
for the usage of the Church, I deny that the usage of the Church 
forbids a minister to read his prayers from a book. The usage of 
the Church permits a minister to read his sermons, and it cannot 
consistently forbid him to read his prayers, because the two stand 
on the same basis of principle. If there be any arguments sufficient 
to condemn reading prayers, they are equally good to condemn 
reading sermons ; and if there are any reasons for allowing sermons 
to be read, there are also reasons for allowing prayers to be read. 
Our Church usage has been determined in the great preponderance 
of instances to the alternative of not reading prayers very much by 
a historical accident. Our Church is a Church of Puritan extrac- 
tion, and once in the history of Puritanism a strong and partially 
authoritative movement was made to force ministers to read prayers 
which were not their own. As a recoil from this and protest 
against it, our ministers placed themselves at the opposite extreme, 
and prayed extempore, to make it clear that their prayers were their 
own; and in subsequent generations of the Church the popular 



156 Concerning Beards : 

prejudice engendered by witnessing this practice has made many 
conform to it who did not share the prejudice, but who loved peace 
too well to admit of their bearing the resentment of molested igno- 
rance. But the genius of our Church usage does not compel the 
adoption of the one alternative of not reading prayers : it equally 
admits the other alternative of a minister's reading his prayers if he 
thinks fit. For what is the genius, the idea of our Church usage ? 
It is the idea of free prayer. We are continually boasting of our 
privilege of free prayer ; and I admit it is a great privilege. But 
what does it mean ? Why, by free prayer I understand, for one 
thing, the freedom of every individual minister from the bondage of 
a compulsory liturgy — liberty to pray in his own words, and not in 
words prescribed for him by external authority. But free prayer 
means more than this. Freedom does not mean freedom on one side 
merely, but freedom on every side ; and free prayer does not mean 
merely liberty for a minister to pray in whatever words he chooses, 
but also in whatever manner he chooses — with or without paper, as 
he feels most conducive to his satisfactory performance of the exer- 
cise. For it must be remembered that extemporaneous speech is 
not the freest mode of utterance to every one. Very often extem- 
poraneous prayer is the bitterest bondage to the man who attempts 
it, making him to labour under the twofold burden of an excessive 
nervousness and an excessive vacuity. And as for that sham extem- 
poraneous prayer which consists in reciting what has been previously 
written and got by heart, or what has through the slow accumulation 
of years encrusted itself upon the tablets of the memory, I hope 
nobody will profess himself able to believe that there is any differ- 
ence between this and honest reading from a book, except what may 
be implied in the absence of a little paper and the presence of a 
good deal of pretence. Some may pray freely extemporaneously, 
but most will pray most freely from manuscript, just as in preaching. 
And I maintain that reading prayer is just as much free prayer as 
prayer not read, and is as much in consonance with the genius of 
our Church usage in this matter. It is only when you take up our 
Church usage as a blind meaningless custom — a dark irrational 
prejudice — that you can say it prohibits reading prayers. When- 
ever you put an idea and a meaning into it 3 that idea compels you 
to admit that a minister is at liberty to read his prayers if he find 
that best, provided only they are his own, either by origination or 



Being Thoughts on Progress. 1 5 7 

adoption. On these grounds, I hold that the reading of prayers is 
essentially in agreement with the law and usage of the Church. 

And thus his speech ends : — 

I feel assured that the best arrangement for Church prosperity is 
when each individual minister is not shackled and fettered by un- 
numbered laws and usages, but left to the spontaneous and self- 
regulated development of whatever originality is in him. In this 
way I believe the Church is surest to get the full benefit of whatever 
gifts are in her pastors ; and while at all times of the Church, I 
think especially at the present day, it is disastrous to impose shackles 
on freedom of clerical utterance in any form ; and therefore let the 
Act of 1865 apply to whomsoever or whatsoever it likes, it does not 
apply to Dr Lee or anyone who chooses to read his prayers. I 
therefore, upon the whole, come to the conclusion that there is no 
order of the Assembly compelling me to interfere with Dr Lee in 
this matter of reading his prayers ; and I am glad that it is so. For 
I am convinced that nothing can be more disastrous for the pros- 
perity of the Church of Scotland than at the present day to pursue 
a policy of repression in opposition to a policy of emancipation. 
The temper of the times and the thoughts afloat are such that men 
will more and more require of their religious teachers that they be 
men thinking and acting out of their own independent individuality, 
and not mere semi-mechanical organs of traditional ideas and usages. 
The Church that recognises and meets this want will live, flourish, 
and do incalculable good ; the Church that blindly and obstinately 
sets its face against it must speedily become little better than an 
antiquarian curiosity, and have the destiny of suchlike things. And 
because this liberty of reading prayers, if a minister seems so inclined, 
seems to me to be a contribution — a very humble contribution it 
may be, but yet a contribution — to the work of general ministerial 
emancipation, I wish to see it protected ; and therefore it is with 
satisfaction that on this occasion I find myself legally entitled, as I 
am morally glad, to oppose its discouragement. 

On the other side, there was a speech from Dr Muir, 
the venerable minister of St Stephen's, Edinburgh. Dr 
Muir is a man of blameless life, and great ability and 



158 Concerning Beards: 

dignity, who for more than fifty years has done the work 
of the ministry with a zeal and devotion above all praise. 
And indeed, looking at that thoughtful and sad, but beau- 
tiful face, with high and perfect features, shaded by a 
profusion of white hair, — a face that expresses pure in- 
tellect and feeling, without a vestige of animalism, — one 
feels that Dr Muir ought to have been an archbishop. 
He would have been one, if the Scotch Church had such 
dignities : for many years he exercised almost archiepis- 
copal influence in it. And neither of the two archbishops 
on the other side of the Tweed could stand a moment's 
physical comparison with him. Let it be added, that, if 
high moral principle is to be found in this world, you 
have it in Dr Muir. If you knew him, you would know 
a man whom no worldly bribe could tempt from what he 
esteems the right path. Indeed, one cannot even imagine 
Dr Muir as actuated by any mean or sordid motive. Even 
such as differ from him most decidedly are constrained to 
respect him. And such as do in the main agree with 
him look up to him with unfeigned reverence. Here is 
part of what he said : and extreme as the words sound, 
never were words said in deeper sincerity : — 

I don't wish to be thought a terrorist. I don't pretend to be 
prophetic, but it is to me most evident that the work that has been 
begun and carried on so far, has been begun and carried on under 
the sinister influence of the great enemy of the Church — that enemy 
who has always set himself in opposition to the truth as it is in 
Jesus, and to the work of conversion — I mean Satan himself. It is 
my firm conviction that, proceeding as we are now doing, this 
blessed institution of ours, which through grace has been so ser- 
viceable generation after generation, is about to be destroyed. Sir, 






Being Thoughts on Progress. 159 

I love to bear my protest on the side of the precious standards of 
our Church — those standards which, in my opinion, are the most 
exact voice of God's Holy Word. I love to have the opportunity 
of bearing my testimony to our precious system of public worship. 
Simple in the form of it ; nothing in it to come between the soul 
and Christ, the object of the soul's worship ; but all in it that, away 
from intricate liturgical ceremonial, will lead to the accomplishing 
of that which our blessed Saviour has told us we are to aim at in 
public worship — the worship of God, who is a Spirit, in spirit and 
in truth. I own to you that my heart has been deeply oppressed 
by all that has been going on amongst us, under a thorough con- 
viction that it is a plan instigated by the great enemy of evangelical 
truth for the purpose of destroying in our land that which has been 
the main bulwark of the truth, and the main instrument of circulat- 
ing it and impressing it on the minds of the people. I love, there- 
fore, to have the opportunity of bearing thus my public protest, and 
I have come to-day for the purpose of doing so. I know well — 
and we have had an echo of it in the room to-day — that the views 
I now suggest are considered to be views that shackle men's minds, 
and prevent what is called progress — yea, that there is a great deal 
of illiberality and tyranny in any one man attempting to set up his 
views and his practices for the purpose of compelling another to 
adopt these views and follow these practices. Sir, that is what I 
would express my utter detestation of. The right of private judg- 
ment is a most sacred thing. Inquiry on the part of individuals as 
to doctrinal views — inquiry on the part of individuals as to what 
may be improvements in the forms of public worship — such inquiry 
is legitimate. The right of private judgment ought never to be 
interfered with ; and I consider that with the sentiments I have now 
expressed with regard to our precious standards, and with regard 
to our forms of worship, I am still at perfect liberty to make inquiry 
again and again, and should I see reason to change the opinion I 
have this day expressed, no man would prevent me from altering 
that opinion ; and no man has a right to endeavour to force me into 
compliance with his views or practices. Allow me, then, to say 
that I offer no obstruction to the individuals who are making these 
movements. I regret the course they are pursuing, and mourn over 
the results they are impending. If they succeed, our Church is 
gone ; but still I maintain that the right of private judgment is to 



1 60 Concerning Beards 

be defended, and that no man has any title to force others into his 
views or practices. But, sir, I have to put this very serious ques- 
tion — Is a man who has taken solemn oaths to maintain the doc- 
trines of our Church, to maintain its simple ritual, and to follow no 
divisive courses — is a man who has made this engagement, and who, 
on the faith of that engagement, has been ordained and inducted to 
a benefice in the Church, is he entitled to make changes — serious 
changes, in the doctrines, principles, laws, or worship of the 
Church ? or, if he does so, is he to continue within the bounds of 
the Church ? I don't trammel the minds of anyone : I maintain 
the right of private judgment ; but I say that man is not the right 
man in the right place. There is, I suppose, room enough for him 
without — and without he may meet with those who thoroughly 
conform to his opinions, and sentiments, and practices. I beg it to 
be understood that I am not calling in question the sincerity of any- 
one who follows the course which, after serious investigation, he 
considers to be the right one. But I say his mind cannot be at 
peace if he keeps within the bounds of this Church — where, because 
of his declared opinions, opinions tested by an oath, he has been 
inducted into a benefice, and is entitled by law to draw his stipend. 
No doubt we may lament secession, but sincerity and honesty, and 
a regard to oath, demand that these things be not done withm the 
limits of the Church of Scotland. 

A smart observation was made by Mr Gray, incumbent 
of an Old Town Edinburgh parish : — 

He was sure they would all agree with what Dr Muir had said as 
to the right of private judgment, but he felt it might perhaps be 
-well to carry it a step farther than the reverend doctor had done, 
and leave to every minister the right of judging for himself whether 
he could remain within the Church of Scotland or no. 

Here seems to be the kerne] of the question, in a speech 
by Mr Cumming, a member of Presbytery : — 

Although he confessed that the ground had always seemed to 
him most narrow ; although he confessed his feelings were strong 
that, after they gave permission in the Church to a man to prepare 



Being Thoughts on Progress. 161 

his prayers at home and repeat them from memory, they had no 
sufficient stand-point to prevent him who did that from reading his 
prayers; if they gave him permission to read his prayers, as Dr 
Chalmers no doubt did — and did, he believed, when Moderator of 
the General Assembly — from manuscript, he felt that they had not 
a sufficient stand-point to prevent him reading them from print ; 
and if they gave a man permission to read his prayers from print, 
he did not see where they had a stand-point to prevent a man print- 
ing them for himself, and those who in the Church might wish 
them. 

Finally came Dr Lee, the great heresiarch himself. 
Wonderful are Dr Lee's fluency and cleverness. And 
indeed, so consummate a master is he of logical fence, 
that his manifest ease lessens the impression he makes, by 
taking away the appearance of earnestness that comes 
when a speaker seems possessed and overwhelmed by his 
subject. A little floundering for words,; — a little look of 
being unequal to express what he feels, — might add to 
the impression made by this speaker. Dr Lee is a Scotch 
Broad-Churchman : and through his peculiar position and 
views is able to reach and influence many not usually very 
impressible by clerical influence. I quote some passages 
from his speech : — 

As to the liturgy, one would expect in an argument like this 
some definition of what a liturgy is. According to my under- 
standing, it is a public document sanctioned by authority, and 
imposed on all ministers of the Church. Sol would understand by 
a liturgy. I should like to know what the gentlemen who have 
spoken to-day understand by a liturgy ? They seem to think that 
the reading of prayers is a liturgy. Such confusion of ideas is 
astonishing in a Church court. It is astonishing among sensible 
men; much more is it astonishing among clergymen of the Church 
and lawyers. We know what the liturgy of the Church of England 

L 



1 62 Concerning Beards. 

is. It is a set of prayers and services, made and sanctioned by 
public authority, and which every minister is obliged to use. John 
Knox's liturgy, though not enforced with the same strictness, has the 
same character, and every liturgy has the same character. Does the 
fact of a man reading the prayers of his own composition, which he 
changes as often as he likes, and uses some one day and others the 
next, which he deals with as he chooses, constitute a liturgy? I 
really feel ashamed to reply to such confusion of ideas, to give it no 
stronger term. Suppose you succeed in violating the laws of the 
Church, and take from me that liberty which I now enjoy, of 
reading my prayers, what do you make me do ? You compel me 
to make a much closer approximation to a liturgy than now exists. 
I should then be compelled to do what other gentlemen do whose 
consciences I suppose are free from the sin of liturgising, and learn 
off one of my Sunday's prayers, and repeat it perpetually. I would 
be compelled to do what some of my brethren do, repeat the same 
prayer from Sunday to Sunday without one syllable of variation 
from January to June, and from June to January, during their whole 
incumbency. I should think the essence of a liturgy, if it is not to 
be defined, as I have said, is sameness — the continual repetition of 
the same thing. I maintain, Moderator, that the disuse of reading 
prayers has had this effect extensively. I do not blame the men 
who act in the way I have said. There are many men who are not 
able to speak extempore, and not able to learn off what they have 
written, and so they are forced to adopt that mode of proceeding 
which Mr Wallace so pointedly characterises, and in fact to approxi- 
mate to a liturgy through their very horror of read prayers. I say 
read prayers are not contrary either to the laws or constitution of 
the Church, or, properly interpreted, to the traditions of the Church. 
It is very remarkable that while Knox's Book of Common Order 
was read for seventy or eighty years, there should not have been 
one syllable in your proceedings or acts condemning this ; while, 
on the contrary, the reading of sermons, now a general practice, is 
directly opposed to the traditions of the Church, and never was 
heard of till a late period, when the subject was brought before the 
General Assembly, and when something was said regarding it, to 
which I beg to call your attention. So late as the year 1726, the 
Assembly remitted to its Commission an overture anent the method 
of preaching ; and in a representation and petition, signed by 



Being Thoughts on Progress. 163 

twenty-four influential ministers, laid before the Assembly in 1732, 
reference is thus made to it: — "There appears much more need 
for it" — that is, for such an overture or ordinance — "everyday, 
by reason of several innovations both in the method and strain of 
preaching introduced by some strangers and young ministers, very 
displeasing to God's people, and causing no small obstruction to 
spiritual edification. Nay, a young minister appointed to preach 
before her Majesty's Commissioner at last Assembly had the assur- 
ance to add to former innovations that of reading the sermon 
openly. To other offensive innovations he has added this innova- 
tion, though he could not but know that it would give great offence 
both to the ministers and people of this Church, and bring a reflec- 
tion on the Assembly as if it approved thereof." Now, sir, that is 
all my answer to the talk about the Church forfeiting its establish- 
ment. The preaching of sermons by reading them was without 
precedent in the Church of Scotland. No man ever heard of Knox 
or any of his followers reading sermons. That was the mode ot 
conducting worship in 1 690, when the Acts of Security and the 
Union were passed. If, therefore, your establishment is to be 
forfeited by reading prayers, it is forfeited accordingly by the reading 
of sermons. For here is a palpable instance of innovation contrary 
to the foregoing traditions and the universal practice of the Church 
of Scotland. Let me ask you, sir, if the reading of a prayer forfeits 
the establishment, what must the reading of a sermon ? 

Elsewhere he says : — 

Moderator, I have heard to-day, as I have heard many times 
before, a great deal of denunciation — a very great deal of what I 
think uncharitable and unwarrantable insinuation ; but though I 
have listened with anxiety, I have found very little that can by any 
stretch of courtesy be considered argument or fact. I have been 
asked how I could remain a minister of the Church and persevere 
in customs contrary to its laws and its traditions. I ask the gentle- 
men who have spoken where are these laws ? I have asked them 
to quote these laws. The General Assembly gave a decision in 
1859 which has been often referred to, and in which it said that 
reading prayers was contrary to the laws and usages of the Church. 
No doubt to its late usages and practices, but I have challenged my 
opponents again and again, and I challenge them now, to con- 



1 64 Concerning Beards. 

descend on the laws which I have broken. When a man is ar- 
raigned before the civil court, where the forms of justice are 
observed, and where common regularity is observed in its proceed- 
ings, the clause of the Act which he has violated is quoted. Why 
have not these gentlemen quoted the Act which I have violated by 
reading my own prayers ? I say this is not worthy to be called 
argument ; it is wild, reckless, unfounded assertion, and nothing 
more. Do you not know that the Church of Scotland began with 
a liturgy, and for many years read its prayers ; that the last prayer 
in which John Knox joined was read, and that in your Acts of 
Assembly and the proceedings of your Church courts you cannot 
find one Act or one authoritative proceeding either condemning or 
discountenancing read prayers? I call on you to produce the laws 
you allege, and till you have produced them I shall continue to 
assert that there is none, and that I have broken no law whatever. 
If I thought I had broken any law, I should certainly be very sorry 
for having done so, and instantly amend my conduct. Some rhetoric 
has been added to adorn the rotten argument which has been 
attempted ; but, sir, this ornament does not conceal the rottenness 
at all. 

And thus Dr Lee concludes : — 

One would suppose, Moderator, to hear what has been said this 
afternoon, that some monstrous evil was practised by myself and my 
congregation. The inspiration of Satan has been referred to as 
alone sufficient to account for such monstrous doings. I could 
hardly trust my ears when I heard such things said. What is it 
that has been done ? It is only that which the Reformers did — 
which the Church of Scotland did during its earliest and best days. 
I hope that the Christians of the Church of England are not inspired 
with the devil when they read their prayers; I hope that John Knox 
was not inspired with the devil when he composed the Book of 
Common Order ; and I hope that the Christian Church generally 
are not under Satanic influence in the conviction which begins to be 
diffused that an extemporaneous service is not the most edifying, 
and that it is proper and advantageous to employ compositions — 
written or printed compositions — during at least part of the service. 
Why, sir, the application of such phrases, and the allegation of such 



Being Thoughts on Progress. 165 

causes, really betray, I think, an extremely weak position, and a 
very distressing want of plausible argument. 

It is not a pleasure to me, whatever some gentlemen may think 
or say, to stand in opposition to the Church courts. I feel it pain- 
ful to be constantly upbraided as if I were a man without any 
conscience, and as if I did not feel the obligation of vows that I 
have taken on myself. It is not pleasing to me to be upbraided in 
that way, and I was anxious to comply with the prejudices which I 
thought had prevailed in the General Assembly. Accordingly I 
made various attempts to carry on the public worship without a 
book, since a book was an offence in the eyes of the Assembly. I 
endeavoured to carry on the worship otherwise. At one time I 
could have committed the whole of the book to memory without 
any difficulty ; but I found from disuse, and I suppose from advanc- 
ing years, I was no longer able to do it. I took notes with me, and 
I bungled the service. I do not know whether other people thought 
it was bungled, but to my apprehension it was. I felt uncomfort- 
able, and could not do justice to my own ideas. I wrote notes 
larger and larger simply to assist my memory. This issued in the 
composition of a new book. That book, thinking it might be use- 
ful to others, and thinking it was a mere quibble to read the prayers 
from manuscript instead of from a printed book, I got printed, in- 
asmuch as it contained the psalms, or what I considered a proper 
selection from the psalms and paraphrases for singing. It was with 
that view primarily that the book got into the hands of the congre- 
gation, the psalms being printed at proper lengths, and the tunes to 
which they are always sung. The only other alteration is the 
responses comprehending the Amens at the end of the prayers. I 
did not think it required the authority of the General Assembly or 
of the Presbytery to recommend a practice — for I did recommend 
it — which was sanctioned by the Old Testament and by the New 
expressly. I did not think I needed to come to the General As- 
sembly or to the Presbytery, when I had the express authority of 
the law and the prophets, and of the New Testament itself, for a 
practice without which public worship wants the very form of con- 
gregational and public worship. I did not think that any man 
could suppose that that was a violation of the law ; and I ask where 
is there anything forbidding such a practice? All Christians 
throughout the world do it — in the ancient Churches, both Greek 



1 6 6 Concern ing Bea rds. 

and Latin, and all Churches which have a worship, the Amen is 
said ; and I think it would be too ridiculous for me to come here 
and ask sanction, to do that which you all ought to do and teach 
your congregations to do. 

The upshot was, that the Presbytery, by a majority, 
determined not to meddle with Dr Lee. The read 
prayers, at the Church of Old Greyfriars, have for the 
moment the tacit sanction of the Presbytery of Edin- 
burgh. It must be said, however, that the decision has 
been appealed to the higher Church courts, and is still 
liable to be reversed. The General Assembly in May 
will decide the question in the last resort. And there is 
no Court of Appeal whose decisions are so hard to fore- 
cast as are those of the General Assembly. 

So things rest meanwhile. Let us trust that good 
may come out of all this commotion. While it lasts, it 
tends somewhat to throw more important matters into 
the shade 

March 1S66. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CONCERNING THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING A 
CANTANKEROUS FOOL ; WITH SOME THOUGHTS 
ON THE TREATMENT OF INCAPACITY.* 

REPROACHFUL face of Fraser, here you are 
again ! Once I hailed you with joy : now I 
behold you with sorrow, mingled with remorse. Rare 
were the numbers, once on a time, in which I had not 
my little share : and my hope for various years was, that 
this might always go on. But now the months pass, 
faster and faster : and the magazine comes : and there is 
nothing of mine in it. Very many were the essays this 
hand used to write : very few they have been for the last 
two years. And wherefore is it so t Is it that I have 
no time to write > Truly never man was harder worked : 
yet I was worked just as hard when each magazine had 
its pages of mine. Much worried ? Yes indeed, and 
liking it always less • yet the tiiiie was when it was relief 
from worry, to sit down at this table and write away. 
Is it that I have got nothing more to say ? Not entirely 
so. Thoughts not unfrequently arise, which in the old 

* This chapter was published in Fraser" s Magazine Tor September 
1866. 



1 68 Concerning the Advantages of 

days would have furnished matter for sixteen pages of 
feeble reflection. But with advancing time one grows 
more modest ; and feels less disposed to speak unless sure 
that one has something to say which is worth hearing. 
That is the thing. The day comes, when not the friend 
who pitches into you most viciously in print, thinks so 
badly of your doings as you think yourself. And instead 
of desiring to add to the number of your pages, you wish 
heartily you could blot out many that exist already. 
When a man reaches forty, he thinks differently of many 
things. 

Yet let me, once again, try to do something in the old 
way : before finally resolving to do the like no more. 
Let me, not unkindly, set forth the praises of Cantankerous 
and Pig-headed Folly j and show certain reasons why it 
is profitable to a human being that he be a Cantankerous 
Fool. 

There are cantankerous fools whom you can keep at 
arm's length : cantankerous fools with whom you need 
have nothing to do : cantankerous fools whom having 
seen once, you need never see again. But human beings 
are linked by many social ties : not even our gracious 
Sovereign herself can successfully resolve that she will 
never have anything to do with anybody she does not 
like. And very often you find that you cannot escape 
from many relations with a cantankerous fool; and that 
you must just make the best of that offensive being. 

Now, how carefully you consider the tempers, the 
crotchets, the idiotic notions and prejudices, of the can- 






Being a Cantankerous Fool. 169 

tankerous fool from whom you cannot escape ! As for a 
human being of good sense and good temper, nobody, in 
the common transactions of life, minds him. Nobody 
smoothes him down : pets him : considers him : tries to 
keep him right. You take for granted he will do right, 
and act sensibly, without any management. If you are 
driving a docile and well-tempered horse, who is safe to 
go straight, you give the animal little thought or atten- 
tion. But if you have to drive a refractory pig, how much 
more care and thought you put into that act of driving ! 
Your wits must be alive : you humour the abominable 
brute : you try to keep it in a good temper : and when 
you would fain let fly at its head, or apply to it abusive 
epithets, you suppress the injurious phrase, and you hold 
back the ready hand. So with many a human being, 
whom you are trying to get to act rationally : who hangs 
back on all kinds of idiotic pretexts, and starts all con- 
ceivable preposterous objections to the course which com- 
mon sense dictates : frequently changing his ground, and 
defying you to pin him to any reason he states, as is the 
way with such creatures. "When your tongue is ready to 
exclaim, " O you disgusting and wrong-headed fool, will 
you not try to behave rationally ? " you withhold the ready 
and appropriate words : you know that would blow the 
whole thing up : and you probably say, in friendly tones, 
" My good fellow, there is a great deal in your objections; 
and we have all the greatest desire to do what you may 
wish : but then there are A, and B, difficult men to deal 
with : and in this little matter, you must just let us do 



1 70 Concerning the Advantages of 

what has been arranged. Pray do this, and we shall all 
be very greatly obliged to you." Perhaps you even de- 
grade yourself by suggesting to the cantankerous fool 
reasons which you know to be of no weight, but which 
your knowledge of the fool makes you think may have 
weight with his idiotic mind. By little bits of deference 
and attention, rendered with a smooth brow, beneath 
which lurks the burning desire to take him by the neck 
and shake him, you seek to keep straight the inevitable 
cantankerous fool. Yes, my reader, if you want to be 
deferred to, humoured, made much of: if you want to 
have everybody about you trying to persuade you to act 
as a sensible man would act without any persuasion ; and 
everybody quite pleased and happy if you have been got 
after much difficulty into the right track ; see that you set 
yourself before that portion of mankind that cannot get 
rid of you, in the important and influential character of 
an ill-tempered and wrong-headed fool. 

The jibbing horse in the team : the loose screw in the 
machine : the weak link of the chain : they are the im- 
portant things. People think of them : watch them : 
stand a good deal to keep them right. As Brutus 
shammed himself a fool for protection, so might a wise 
man in these days sham himself a fool for consideration. 
Don't be sensible and good-natured : nobody will be afraid 
of your taking the pet and getting into the sulks, then. 
But be always taking offence : striking work : refusing to 
go where you ought: and you will meet the highest 
consideration. People may indeed confound you behind 



Being a Cantankerous Fool. 1 7 1 

your back : but before your face they will be civil to a 
degree they never would be with an amiable and judicious 
man. You see, you may explode at any moment. You 
may lie down in the shafts at any moment. You may 
kick out furiously at any moment. So all hands will try 
to keep you in good humour. 

The human being who is called a Privileged Person is 
generally a cantankerous fool. Sometimes, indeed, the 
privileged person is so privileged because of the possession 
of invaluable qualities which make you bear with any- 
thing he says and does. Even where these are amiss, 
they are so magnificently counterbalanced. But the can- 
tankerous fool from whom there is no escaping, is the 
most privileged of all privileged people. No matter how 
ill-bred and provoking he is, you must just suffer it. No 
matter how far in the wrong he is, you must just try to 
smooth him down and make things straight. If you get 
into any altercation or difference with the fool, you are at 
a great disadvantage. He has no character to lose : but 
you probably have a reputation for good sense and good 
humour which any conspicuous disturbance would damage. 
Then, restrictions of decency in language and conduct 
fetter you, which are to the fool what the green rushes 
were to Samson. You could not for your life get up and 
roar, as you have seen the fool get up and roar. 

If you know a man will bellow like a bull if you differ 
from him in opinion, you just listen to his opinion and hold 
your tongue. If you know a dog bites, you give him a 
wide berth. If a ditch be very pestiferous when stirred 



172 Concerning the Advantages of 

up, you don't stir it up. The great principle on which 
the privileges of cantankerous folly and ill-nature found is 
this : that as we go on through life we grow somewhat 
cowardly : and if a thing be disagreeable, we just keep 
out of its way : sometimes by rather shabby expedients. 

Well, after all, the deference paid to the cantankerous 
fool is not a desirable deference. True it is, that if you 
have to get twelve men to concur with you in a plan for 
bringing water into the town of which you are chief 
magistrate, or painting the church of which you are in- 
cumbent, or making some improvement in the manage- 
ment of the college of which you are principal, you bestow 
more pains and thought on the one impracticable, stupid, 
wrongheaded, and cantankerously foolish person of the 
twelve, than upon all the other eleven. But this is just 
because you treat that impracticable and cantankerous 
person as you would treat a baby, or an idiot, or a bulldog, 
or a jackass. The apparent deference you pay the can- 
tankerous man, is simply an inferior degree of the same 
thing that makes you confess yourself a teapot if a raving 
madman has you at an open window, and says he will 
throw you over unless you forthwith confess yourself a 
teapot. Pigheaded folly is so disagreeable a thing, that 
you would do a good deal to keep it from intruding itself 
upon your reluctant gaze,- and the cantankerous fool, 
petted, smoothed down, complimented, deferred to, is 
truly in the most degraded position a rational being can 
easily reach. " O let us humour him : he is only Snooks 
the cantankerous fool)" "Give in to him a little: he 



Being a Cautankeroits Fool. i J 3 

will make no end of a row if you don't : " such are the 
reflections of the people who yield to him. If he had 
any measure of sense, he would see how degraded is his 
position : what a humiliating thing it is to be deferred to 
on the terms on which he is deferred to. But the notion 
of the presence of sense is excluded by the very terms of 
his definition. For how can there be sense in a can- 
tankerous fool ? 

All this, the thoughtful reader sees, leads us up to the 
wide and important subject of the Treatment of Incapa- 
city. That varies, in the most striking way, as the posi- 
tion of the incapable person varies. 

If a servant, lately come home, proves quite unfit for 
his work, you first scold him -, and if that avail nothing, 
then you send him away. If the grocer who supplies you 
with tea and sugar, persists in supplying you with exe- 
crably bad tea and sugar, you resign your position as his 
customer : you enter his shop no more. But if the in- 
capable person is in a sufficiently important place 5 and 
cannot be turned out of it ; the treatment is entirely dif- 
ferent. You stand up for the man. You puff him. You 
deny that he is incapable. You say he is " a very good 
appointment," however abominably bad you know him 
to be. The useless judge you declare to be a sound 
lawyer, whose modesty hinders the general recognition of 
merits. The clergyman who neglects his duty shamefully, 
and whose sermons no man can listen to, you declare to 
be a good sensible preacher, with no claptrap about him : 
none of your new brooms that sweep far too clean. The 



174 Concerning the Advantages of 

blackleg peer, drunk, profligate, a moral nuisance and 
curse, is described as a pattern of all the proprieties. As 
for the hardly conceivable monarch, such as Gorgius IV. 
of Brentford, who never did a brave or good deed in all 
his life, he takes his rank as the first gentleman in Europe. 
Yes : the peculiar treatment of the wrong man in the 
wrong place (by cautious and safe people), is loudly to 
declare that he is the right man in the right place. The 
higher the place he disgraces, the louder and firmer the 
asseveration. And if any man speaks out the fact of the 
incapacity which all men see, then you bully that man. 
You fly at him. You abuse him. You tell him his con- 
duct is indecorous : is indecent. You declare that it is 
not to be supposed that what he says is true : being all 
the while well aware that it is true. 

If a poor curate be idle and stupid, so stupid that he 
could not do his work if he tried, and so idle that he will 
not try, that poor curate is sent away. But if the incum- 
bent of a rather important parish be all that, you go on a 
different tack. You say his health is not good. His 
church is not empty : on the contrary, it is very respect- 
ably attended. It strikes a stranger indeed as empty; 
but those who attend it regularly (especially the incom- 
petent incumbent himself) think it very fairly filled; and 
of course they are the best judges. This crucial case will 
help the ingenious reader to the great principle which 
decides the treatment of incapacity. It is this. An E\il 
you can remove, you look in the face. You see how bad 
it is. You even exaggerate its badness. But an Evil you 



Being a Cantankerous Fool. 175 

cannot get rid of, you try not to see. You seek to dis- 
cover redeeming points about it. If you have a crooked 
stick to walk with, and cannot get another, you make the 
best of the crooked stick : you persuade yourself it is 
nearly straight. But if a handsome stick is offered you in 
its place, you pitch the wretched old thing away. Your 
eyes are opened to a full sense of its crookedness. In 
brief, the great rule is, that you make the best of a bad 
bargain. 

Many married people have to do so. They are well 
aware that in marrying, they made an unhappy mistake. 
But they just try to struggle on : though the bitter blunder 
is felt every day. One great evil of the increased facility 
of divorce in these latter days, is, that it tends to make 
men and women hastily conclude that a state of things is 
intolerable, which while deemed inevitable was borne with 
decent resignation. You try to put a good face on the 
trouble which cannot be redressed. You " make believe 
very much ; " as all human beings have at some period of 
life in regard to their worldly position ; the situation of 
their home ; the state of their teeth - 3 the incursions of 
age on their personal beauty. You were resolved to 
believe your dwelling a handsome and pleasant one 5 and 
your place in life not such a dead failure as in your 
desponding hours you plainly saw it to be. And who but 
a malignant fool would try to dispel the kindly delusion 
which keeps a man from quite breaking down ? If your 
friend Smith was in his own eyes what he is in yours, 
he would lie down and die; overcome by his sense of 



176 Concerning the Advantages of 

being such a wretched little jackass. My friend Jones 
told me that once upon a time, attending a sitting of the 
House of Peers in Mesopotamia in America, he heard a 
man make a speech, every sentence of which cried aloud 
that the speaker was an inexpressible fool. At first, Jones 
was indignant at the speaker's manifest self-satisfaction. 
But gradually Jones became reconciled to the state of facts 
as this consideration presented itself to his reflective un- 
derstanding : That if the unhappy orator had thought of 
himself and his appearance as Jones thought of both, he 
would have fled to the remote wilderness and never been 
seen more ! 

How are you to manage a cantankerous fool? If 
possible, you will of course avoid such. But how are you 
to deal with those whom you cannot avoid? Well, I 
know it does not sound magnanimous : but I fear you can 
govern the cantankerous fool only by careful consideration 
of his nature ; and adaptation of your means to that. I 
mean, you will not suggest to him reasons of conduct 
which would have weight only with men of sense. It 
you want to melt a piece of wax, you bring it in contact 
with fire. But if you do the like with a piece of clay, the 
clay is hardened, not softened. In like manner, there are 
arguments and considerations which would make a man of 
good sense and temper go to the right, which would make 
the cantankerous fool go to the left. What profit, then, in 
suggesting to the fool motives which his nature incapaci- 
tates him for understanding? You must deal with the 
animal as you find him : move him by the things that will 



Being a Cantankerous Fool. 177 

make him move. The whipcord, which makes the 
donkey go, has no effect when applied to the locomotive 
engine : yet the whipcord serves its end when it makes the 
donkey go. And the reason which, being suggested to 
the sensible man, would make him ask you if you thought 
him a fool, will often avail to move the fool in the direc- 
tion in which you would have him proceed. 

I can see plainly that in thus managing the can- 
tankerous fool, you run the risk of falling to the use of 
means savouring of the base. But no rule can be laid 
down which may not be carried to an extreme. And we 
can but say, never say or do that which is sneaking or 
dishonest : even though by so doing you could get the 
fool to behave like a man of sense for many hours, or at 
the most critical juncture. I do not believe that honesty 
is the best policy. I have seen many cases in which it 
was plainly the worst. Yet honesty is unquestionably 
the thing for an honest man. And let the advice, to 
govern the fool by regarding his nature, be understood as 
counselling you to do so, as far as an honest man may. 

The truth is, you govern by obeying. You get mate- 
rial nature to do what you want, by finding out its laws, 
and conforming to them. If you desire to order water to 
boil, you command it so to do by obeying the law which 
says, that water shall boil, being placed upon a fire. If 
you would require a field to supply you in September 
with a crop of wheat, you do so by obeying the field's 
nature in many ways : ploughing the field (which it de- 
mands of you) : sowing it, and that in the due season : in 

M 



i j 8 Concerning the Advantages of 

short, you humour that field in its likings ; and in return 
for humouring its likings, you get the field to do what 
you like. So with the fool : so, in truth, with the wise 
man too. All this is fair and aboveboard. But when 
you come to manage the fool by means analogous to that 
of him, who knowing his pig would advance only in the 
opposite direction from that he desired, affected the desire 
that the pig should go north when the deep craving of his 
heart was that the pig should indeed go south, — you are 
going on a tack whose honesty is questionable. 

There is a process, singularly offensive to the writer, 
of which one sometimes hears mention. It is that of 
keeping people sweet : such is the idiomatic phrase. 
It is a process not needful in the case of sensible people, 
who have no tendency to turn sour : it is a mode of opera- 
tion especially applicable in the case of the cantankerous 
fool. It consists in paying special deference to the person 
to be kept sweet : in going frequently and asking his advice 
on matters as to which you have already made up your 
mind, and as to which you know well his opinion is of no 
possible value : in trying to smooth him down when he 
takes the pet, as he often does : in making many calls 
upon him : in conveying by many tacit signs that you 
esteem him as very wise, very handsome, very influential. 
I have used the masculine gender through the last sen- 
tence : though the peculiar usage described is much em- 
ployed in the case of old women of pecuniary means. 
Sometimes, indeed, old women of no wealth nor influ- 
ence wish people to take pains to keep them sweet : but 






Being a Cantankerous Fool. 1 79 

in these instances the old women are generally permitted 
just to remain in a condition of unalleviated acidity. 

O judicious reader, wise and amiable, and not uninnu- 
ential, receive it as a high testimony to your sense and 
temper, if no human being tries to keep you sweet ! 
For in all ordinary cases, the fact that you try to keep 
any mortal sweet, testifies to your firm conviction that the 
mortal in question is a silly if not a cantankerous fool ! 

But let us turn from these thoughts, some of which 
are irritating, to something sure to soothe. It is now 
11.30 p.m., and it is early in July. Alas, the time of 
green leaves and bright days, how fast it goes ! Let us 
pull up the blind that covers part of that bay-window, 
and look out upon the calm night, from which the day- 
light has not quite passed away. First, there is a little 
bit of grass : beyond, at the foot of a cliff of forty feet, 
the famous Bay. There it spreads, smooth as glass in the 
twilight : a great solitary expanse. Beyond, many miles 
off, there is a long range of purple hills. Under those 
waters rests that noble chime of bells that belonged to 
our cathedral : the bells went down with the vessel which 
was carrying them away. To this sacred spot Christian 
pilgrims have come for fifteen hundred years : a good 
many of them, not improbably, being cantankerous fools. 
And looking on the calm sea, amid this hush of nature : 
thinking of the solemn associations of the ancient place j 
the writer heard twelve o'clock sound from silvery bells 
that were here before the Reformation, and concluded 
that it was time to go to bed. 



CHAPTER IX. 

CONCERNING THE TREATMENT OF SUCH AS 
DIFFER FROM US IN OPINION. 

ON Sunday, November u, i86<5, public worship was 
being conducted at the parish church of St Mark, 
in the city of Dublin. The time came when the sermon 
was to be preached. The preacher was the present Arch- 
bishop of Dublin : the learned, able, and judicious Dr 
Richard Chenevix Trench. When the Archbishop had 
ascended the pulpit, and was just about to read out his 
text, it is recorded that three hundred young men of most 
respectable appearance arose 5 and without tumult or 
other demonstration, left the church in a body. No doubt 
the congregation must have been disturbed, and the 
preacher astonished. 

The reason why these respectable young men so acted 
was, that the Archbishop, in a charge lately delivered by 
him, had expressed certain opinions which they disap- 
proved. Nobody can be more disinterested than I am, in 
looking at the suggestive event : for I have not the faintest 
idea as to what the opinions were which the Archbishop 
expressed and the young men disapproved. Nor do I 



Concerning the Treatment, &c. 181 

express any judgment whatever as to the conduct of either 
the young men or the Archbishop. All I say is, here is 
one way of treating a man who differs from you in opinion. 
It is simple : and your protest cannot fail to be remarked 
by many. 

It was a charge, in which the Archbishop had managed 
to give offence to those young men. It must therefore 
have been delivered in a church. And the decorous rules 
of such a place hindered a certain rough and ready method 
of expressing disapproval of what was said in it. The 
auditors, elsewhere, and in listening to an ordinary speech 
or address, might have signified that they did not agree 
with what was being said, by hissing it. Though that 
sound may fall unpleasantly on the speaker's ear, I do not 
know that he has any right to complain of it as offensive. 
It is the understood way in which an audience tells a 
speaker, " Now, we don't agree with what you are say- 
ing." And the intensity and endurance of the sibilation 
will be the measure of the degree in which the opinions 
expressed are in themselves disagreeable, or are made dis- 
agreeable by a disagreeable way of expressing them. For 
there is no doubt at all, that though as a general rule we 
have no right to be angry with a man for holding a dif- 
ferent view from ourselves on any subject, yet he may 
express his views in so offensive a way as shall give us just 
reason to be angry with him. He may express them in 
an abusive and insolent way. He may convey to us that 
we are fools for not thinking as he does 3 or even that we 
are villains. And some readers know, that the law of the 



1 82 Concerning the Treatment of such 

land recognises the distinction between opinions temper- 
ately expressed, and the same opinions offensively ex 
pressed. Thus, if a man in these days sets forth views 
which traverse our most cherished religious beliefs, — even 
views which may be properly called blasphemous, — the 
law will not touch him if he do so in a temperate way, 
and in the interest of what he deems truth. But if he 
set forth his views with the manifest purpose of outraging 
the feelings of a Christian community, he will be pun- 
ished. I mention an extreme case. But we all know, 
that there are people who can express opinions very dif- 
ferent from our own, in so candid, fair, and good-natured 
a way, that no one can take offence. And there are 
people, too, who by want of tact, temper, and considera- 
tion for the feelings of others, are sure, in setting forth 
their opinions, to excite bitter animosity in an opponent's 
mind. 

Shall it be confessed, in beginning, that we have all a 
natural tendency to get angry with those who will not 
think as we do ? Shall it be confessed, that the history 
of mankind shows, that difference in opinion, as to im- 
portant matters, is one of the bitterest of all offences ; and 
is visited with punishments of diverse degrees, varying 
from ceasing to ask a human being to dinner or even to 
tea, to the cutting off of his head or the burning him at 
the stake? Must it be admitted, that agreement in 
opinion, in tastes and likings, is often felt as one of the 
greatest compliments you can pay a man ? You know 
how a skiful person once gained the favour of a minister 



As differ from us in Opinion. 18 



o 



of state whose tastes were most anomalous in the matter 
of waistcoats, by appearing before him in a waistcoat too 
bright to look upon, a waistcoat of the most extraordinary 
shape and hue, yet which in shape and hue was identical 
with that worn by the minister of state himself. Is there 
truth in the suggestion, that a way to the Highland heart 
may be won by professing and of course feeling great 
admiration for the harmonious tones of the bagpipe j or, 
as an eminent French writer renders it, the bugpipe? 
May I here publicly and humbly confess, that a human 
being always rises in my estimation who expresses an en- 
thusiastic admiration for the vast and venerable church in 
which I preach ? Few human beings, alas, are found so 
to do ! Now, everybody knows the story of Charles V. 
and his clocks : how that great emperor, who had ruled 
a large part of Europe during a very stirring and critical 
part of its religious and intellectual history, and tried to 
get men or to force men to think alike on matters religious 
and ecclesiastical, began to see that he had been trying to 
do a vain thing and an impossible one, when he found he 
could not get a few time-pieces to agree in what they 
said as to the hour of the day. My readers and I have 
doubtless arrived at the emperor's conclusion, though by 
different steps from his. Living among people whose 
irresistible bent is to think for themselves, we have learned, 
by abundant experience, that people will not think all in 
the same way. I can say sincerely, and I doubt not 
every one who reads this page could say the like, that I 
cannot think of a single man among those I know, with 



184 Concerning the Treatment of such 

whose opinions I agree on every point. But in speaking 
of people with whom we agree, and from whom we 
differ, I mean of course those in whose case our agreement 
or our difference concerns something which we hold as of 
importance. Thus a Whig in politics differs from a Tory : 
a Dissenter in ecclesiastical matters differs from a Church- 
man. And, seeing that people will differ, no doubt it is 
a natural thing to draw off from people who differ from 
us, and to live in the congenial atmosphere of the society 
of people with whom we agree. When you feel that you 
are at antipodes with a man on almost all points you can 
talk of, you naturally feel you cannot get on with him ; 
and so draw off from him. And there is something very 
irritating about a person who is always wanting to prove 
by argument that your opinions are wrong, or that some 
statement you make to him cannot possibly be accurate. 
Such a human being provokes you, whether he is merely 
insisting that the day is warm when you have said it is 
cold ; or persistently worrying you to bring your pet pre- 
judice to the test of argument, — worrying you to take 
down again from the shelf opinions on which your mind 
is made up, and which you do not want to have unsettled. 
And, on the other hand, it is very pleasant and hearty to 
converse with an intelligent person with whom you are 
in thorough sympathy ; not in greater opinions merely, 
but even in lesser tastes and likings. Only a few days 
since, I felt a favour was done me, when a very eminent 
authoress told me she loved and enjoyed Gothic architec- 
ture, and positively hated classical. It was very pleasant. 



As differ from us in Opinion. 185 

There was all the difference between concord and discord 
in music. Yes, sympathy, strongly felt, on even one im- 
portant point, is a strong tie. You remember the con- 
clusion to which ascertained agreement in liking conducted 
an historical or perhaps mythical man. " Do you like 
butter-toast ? " he is recorded to have demanded of a 
certain lady. " Yes," was her reply. " Will you marry 
me ? " was the instant and decisive sequence. When I 
once heard a man say that Glasgow Cathedral was " a 
great ugly gaol of a place," I felt it as a blow. Not a 
very hard one : for I instantly formed a calculation what 
that man's opinion was worth : but still a blow. So with 
a friend who told me that an organ in a church was an 
idol, and a rag of popery. There may be some readers, 
not confined in any place of restraint, who think that : 
frankly, I should get on better with the others, who 
think differently. You are very much disappointed when 
a person you know and like, declares that he thinks 
differently from you, perhaps on some question on which 
you made sure he would agree with you. You find it 
difficult to refrain from feeling and showing displeasure. 
Yet, if you be what you ought to be, you do refrain. 
For your friend has just as good a right to his opinion as 
you have to yours : and possibly his opinion may be as 
near the truth as yours. I don't mind confiding to the 
reader, in the strictest confidence, and on the understand- 
ing that it shall never be repeated, a special form of irrita- 
tion, peculiar to the Scotch clergy. It is to sit in the 
General Assembly, when a vote is being taken on a sub- 



1 86 Concerning the Treatment of such 

ject on which you feel strongly. The fewer of these the 
better for yourself let me say. The vote there, probably 
you do not know, is taken by calling over the roll of the 
names of the members : then each says how he votes. 
Well, it is provoking to listen to the roll being read on 
and on ; and to hear this man and that who you were 
sure would go with you, going the other way. You feel 
just a little angry : and perhaps you form an unjust and 
uncharitable estimate of the man's opinion who differs 
from you. " I remember that man at college," you think 
to yourself : "yes, I remember his standing there, very 
distinctly : and an awful blockhead he was." And when 
you happen to be one of a minority, you doubtless please 
yourself with the belief that Time is with you -, and that 
the day will come when all intelligent mortals will think 
on that question as you think now. 

Now, no doubt, to think wrong, is wrong ; and deserves 
blame. Nobody has a right to form a wrong opinion. 
But we have learned that great lesson of toleration which 
the world took many ages to learn ; that for his honest 
belief, man is indeed responsible, but responsible only to 
his Maker. There is no infallible authority here, to which 
we can go and have all our little differences decided 5 
and in all his beliefs, beyond the very few which are vital, 
and as to which inspiration has spoken explicitly, the 
wise man knows that however strongly he holds them, he 
may be wrong ; and that some day he may see that. It 
hinders me from being so keen a churchman as I might be 
disposed to be, when I see that very wise and good men 



As differ from tts in Opinion. 187 

think on the matter just the other way : and when I see, 
too, that Almighty God looks on at us, going through 
life thinking so differently, and vouchsafes to us no unmis- 
takable information which of us is right. Perhaps I learn 
from that, that the difference is not one to make any 
very bitter fight about : that a larger and more dispas- 
sionate view would show us both right and both wrong. 
For the vexatious thing in this world is, that in any com- 
plicated question, the reasons will not point all in the 
same direction : and what are you to do when there are 
fifteen reasons for going to the right and sixteen for going 
to the left : reasons which you have not simply to count, 
but (what is far more difficult) to weigh ? And yet, with 
all that, you cannot give or get liberty of thought in the 
sense in which some able and thoughtful men desire it : 
that is, leave to hold and express any views, however 
dangerous to morality and society, without anybody think- 
ing the less of you for it. Some opinions, however 
honestly held and calmly expressed, bring discredit 5 and 
justly. There are views, which show not merely a wrong 
head, but some moral perversion. The man who teaches, 
honestly or not, that it is right to sell men or women, 
like inferior animals : to recognise no marriage-tie among 
them : to make them work under the lash for you, and 
not for themselves : to deny them every human claim : 
that man shall never be friend of mine. There was a 
man, a year or two ago, who maintained by argument 
that he had a perfect right to murder his wife and chil- 
dren, and who acted on that belief. Society said to him, 



1 88 Concerning the Treatment of such 

" We shall not discuss the question with you : only your 
ways of thinking and ours are so opposed, that it is plain 
we cannot both go on together : and as you are in the 
minority, you must. give way: so we shall hang you." 
Thus society hanged him : and it unquestionably served 
him right. 

There is a difficulty here, of course : I find difficulties 
now in most things. The days are past in which one was 
quite sure of everything. Sometimes society thus puts 
down opinions which are right and sound opinions ; only 
in advance of the average belief of the age. " Are the 
Mormons good people or bad?" lately asked a friend of 
mine of a class in a school he was examining. " Bad," 
replied a little boy, with decision. "Why bad?" "Be- 
cause they say people may have a great many wives." 
Thus the Mormons were declared bad for an opinion 
they hold. And doubtless it is so desirable to prevent 
that opinion from being generally accepted, that it is well 
to crush it by the readiest means within reach. But, on 
the other side, books have been burnt by the hangman, 
because they set out opinions which all intelligent people 
now accept as true and right. Martin Luther was deemed 
by multitudes a bad man, for teaching what we all believe. 
John Knox was deemed by many a bad and dangerous 
man, for declaring opinions whose result has been to 
make us civilly and religiously free. <l To meddle with 
the Corn Laws would be madness," said Lord Melbourne, 
being then Prime Minister. Yet it was not madness, but 
sense. To emancipate a certain large class of our country- 



As differ from us in Opinion. 189 

men from cruel penal laws would be a national sin : so, 
once on a time, declared many worthy men and worthy 
old women. By and by, the nation discerned that it was 
not a sin, but a duty. " Some day, the king's mails will 
go by railway, and railways will be the great high-roads 
of this country:" so said old George Stephenson: and 
for thinking so and saying so, he was hounded down as 
a mischievous fool. Read the reports of the abuse heaped 
on that great man, before the Committee of Parliament 
on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway : and you will 
see how perilous a thing it is for a man to be a great deal 
wiser than his generation. Yes, it is an awful charge to 
be the only man that knows some great truth, flatly 
opposed to the common way of thinking. Either you 
must be a miserable sneak, shamming a conformity with 
errors and prejudices you despise : or you must set your 
face to a lifelong strife, obloquy, and misrepresentation ; — 
and then, when your views are triumphant at last, likely 
enough see some smart dodger gain the credit which was 
your due. 

Let us go on to think of some of the ways in which 
people have been found to treat such as differed from 
them in opinion. 

I live in an ancient and famous city, in which one is 
often reminded of a very short and simple way of dealing 
with such. It was to burn them. Thus they and their 
opinions together were got rid of, as the people who 
burnt them thought. Vain belief! You might burn 
the men : you did not get rid of their opinions. Every 



190 Concerning the Treatment of such 

soul that now dwells in that city where these heroic men 
were burnt, now holds just the beliefs for holding which 
they thus perished : every soul whose opinion is worth 
a straw. The martyrs were put to death for insisting 
(among other things) that bread was bread ; and that no 
spells which were muttered over it could make it any- 
thing else but bread. (( Ignorant authority," to use the 
words of the most eloquent of living historians, "said 
' The bread is flesh and the wine is blood : we will kill 
you if you say it is not.' A sufficient number of noble- 
minded men were found to accept the alternative; and 
to prefer death to admitting what they knew to be a lie." 
Well, that way of treating such as differ from us in 
opinion, will not do now. People's lives are often better 
than their principles : and though there still remains in 
Europe a certain ruler, the head of a great confederation 
of people, who, according to his principles, ought to burn 
all who differ from him on various matters whenever he 
can, he never would think, now, of doing so. Let me 
say, frankly, he durst not. His place would not be worth 
a week's purchase if he burnt just one heretic. But be- 
sides this wholesome check upon any fancies he might 
take into his head (for it is a great thing in this world to 
make it impossible for a man to do what is wrong : in 
that case we may with some confidence make sure that 
he will not do it), I believe, most sincerely, that the good 
old man would regard the burning of a heretic with just 
as much horror as we should. Dr Newman tells us that 
however right it might be, the sight of a Spanish Act of 



As differ fr 07n us in Opinion. 191 

Faith would have been the death of him. Nobody really 
proposes now to burn people for difference of belief: 
though some are still silly enough to justify such burning. 
And I cannot pass this without declaring, that if any man, 
even of those to whom we owe (under God's over-ruling 
providence) even the most precious parts of that civil and 
religious liberty we possess, taught that to burn those who 
held erroneous theological belief was the right treatment 
of them, therein that man was miserably wrong. And I 
don't care a rush though his name was Calvin ; I don't 
care a rush though his name was Knox. 

Now, I wonder, does any one think that because burn- 
ing is for the present over, the spirit which prompted 
burning is exorcised ? What was that spirit ? It was 
the spirit which grew out of this belief j that there are 
certain opinions and practices so perilous to the exist- 
ing state of things, or the state of things which you 
desire, that by any means whatever they must be put 
down. By burning, if nothing else will do. Of course, 
if knocking on the head would suffice, then by knock- 
ing on the head. If blowing up with gunpowder would 
do, then by blowing up with gunpowder. If mis- 
representation, and abuse, and calling bad names would 
suffice, then by misrepresentation, and abuse, and calling 
bad names. In short, whenever you try to bully a man 
out of his opinion instead of reasoning him out of it : 
whenever you attempt any form or degree of physical or 
moral intimidation j you are showing that you would 
burn an opponent, if you had the chance, and if you 



19 2 Concerning the Treatment of such 

durst. Well, is intimidation ever attempted towards those 
who differ from us in opinion ? 

I read the other day, in an ancient manuscript, how an 
eminent politician (in Ethiopia of course, for I make no 
reference whatever to British politics), said, in a speech 
delivered by him at a large and excited meeting, that 
another politician who thought differently from himself 
and those he was addressing, was only safe in that town 
in concealment. What did that mean ? Perhaps it meant 
merely that if openly there, he would be sought out, and 
by cogent reasoning, expressed in civil language, con- 
vinced how erroneous was his present belief. Perhaps 
the savage yells with which the orator's words were re- 
ceived, were the indication, on the part of calm logicians, 
that they felt how triumphantly they could refute the 
man's views, and bring him to their way of thinking. If 
so, I can but regret that the first reading of the eminent 
politician's words conveyed an entirely different suggestion 
to my mind. I read the other day, not in an ancient 
manuscript, how a man, a working man, who thought 
differently from his brother-workers at the same trade, 
and acted on his opinion, had something in the nature of 
a shell charged with gunpowder thrown into his house, 
which blew the house to pieces, though by God's mercy 
it killed no one. It was meant, plainly, to kill all. I 
have read how at the election for the burgh of Melipo- 
tamus, an unpopular candidate had his skull fractured by 
a large stone, thrown by some one who plainly thought 
that his arguments were better addressed to the outside 



As differ from us in Opinion. 193 

of an opponent's head. I am not going to say more of 
this peculiar treatment of such as differ from us in opinion : 
except that those who approve it, need not find fault with 
the Inquisition, and may well cherish the memory of a 
certain Cardinal Beton. Let not the pot call the kettle 
black. 

Not such extreme cases are now to be thought of. 
Only such treatment of such as differ in opinion as very 
passably respectable persons may be found to resort to. 
One mode of treatment known in the middle ages but 
quite unknown now, was to tell lies about an opponent : 
to repeat things to his prejudice which you may not 
exactly be quite sure are false, but which you strongly 
suspect to be so, and which a very little examination 
would prove to be so. For example, a man in Scotland 
has an organ in his church. You disapprove of organs. 
Accordingly, you write a letter to a newspaper stating 
that the man has left off preaching sermons in church, 
and instead reads bits of a book entitled Ecce Homo. Of 
course th>s is a falsehood ; and you might most easily 
ascertain that it is one: but it tends to show that the man 
with the organ is a fool ; and accordingly you propagate 
the falsehood. My friend Mr Smith has a very fine 
organ in his church, which is remarkably well played, 
and delights everybody. One day he chanced to be 
travelling by railway many miles from his home : when, 
on the train stopping at a station, his ear was caught by 
the mention of his own church's name. He looked : and 
lo, two horribly ugly and malignant-looking old women 

N 



194 Concerning the Treatment of such 

were bitterly inveighing against organs. Said one to the 
other, " Oh, the organ at St Ananias ! Such a miserable 
failure ! Half the Sundays they can't get anybody to play 
it at all : and when the organist comes, it is most abomin- 
able. None of your gewgaws for me!" My friend 
listened in silence, and heard a series of the most out- 
rageous falsehoods related about himself. Had I been 
he, I should have told the ugly old woman who I was, 
and demanded her authority. You know how the mother 
of Dr Chalmers stopped ill-natured gossip among her 
acquaintance. When an acquaintance A. came and told 
her something bad about another acquaintance B., she in- 
stantly said : " Oh, I don't think that can be true : but I 
shall just put on my bonnet and go over to Mrs B. and 
ask her whether it is true ; and tell her you told me about 
it!" Ah, how eagerly the acquaintance A. repudiated 
such a course ! It was pleasant enough to tell the malig- 
nant lie : but quite another thing to be brought to book 
for it. And rarely did any acquaintance come to Mrs 
Chalmers a second time with a piece of ill-natured gossip. 
I fear it cannot be denied that in the middle ages, — say 
from the twelfth century to the fifteenth, — the conversa- 
tion of low-minded people used to consist to a very great 
degree of retailing malignant bits of gossip to the preju- 
dice of those who thought differently from themselves. 
Of course, in the nineteenth century, this has entirely 
ceased. 

There are men, incapable of telling a falsehood, who 
will cut the persons who presume to think differently 



As differ from us in Opinion. 195 

from them. To differ from them in opinion is a per- 
sonal and grievous offence. Vote against such a one in a 
deliberative assembly : and though a little before he 
seemed your dearest friend, now he passes you without 
notice. Quite lately, I heard a most worthy clergyman 
say, that such a person, who had published a volume of 
unsound theology, had come to live near him. " We 
used to be great friends/' he said ; " but of course now I 
don't recognise him on the street." I confess I doubted 
whether this was the right way to reclaim the heretic. 
Yet people in a humble walk follow the example. " If 
you say that, I have done with you ! " And history tells 
of an old Tory lady, who said to her son, " If you turn a 
Whig, there is no room for you in this house." 

Quite as injudicious a treatment of the friend who 
honestly and frankly differs from you, is to sulk in a 
corner, as it were : to draw off from him : to decline to 
discuss your difference of opinion with him. Possibly 
this peculiar treatment is the most irritating of all : at 
least to a manly and generous mind. You go to the 
friend from whom you have differed : you say how sorry 
you are that you don't see your way to think as he does : 
and you offer, in a frank, hearty way, to tell him your 
reasons for thinking as you do, that if you are wrong, you 
may be set right. But he persistently refuses to talk the 
matter over with you : refuses in a dour, sulky way. I 
don't mean the case in which you decline to discuss some 
point on which you feel strongly, with some impertinent 
stranger, who has no right to your confidence, and who 



196 Concerning the Treatment of such 

wants to force his views upon you. To that sort of thing 
you politely give the go-by : your meaning being to con- 
vey to your very slight acquaintance, " Well, you are not 
in a position which entitles you to push your peculiar 
views upon me." When a young girl from the West 
country went out to Rome to convert the Pope, I should 
say that good old gentleman was quite right in good- 
naturedly declining to discuss with her the foundations of 
his faith. I am thinking now of the case of a man with 
whom you are on such terms of friendship as entitle you 
to go and set yourself right with him when you think he 
is doing you an injustice ; and entitle him to tell you 
frankly when he thinks you are doing wrong ; instead of 
drawing off in a petted, sulky, boorish way. When such 
a friend shows he thinks you have done wrong, I say he 
is bound to hear what you have got to say to the end of 
showing why you think you have done right. He is 
bound, in a kindly way, to discuss with you the point on 
which you differ : unless indeed he judges it best that 
anything like intimacy of friendship should cease. 

Archbishop Whately, writing to Dr Newman, who 
had shown a disposition to sulk rather than frankly dis- 
cuss, speaks of " our long, intimate, and confidential 
friendship, which would make it your right and your duty, 
if I did anything to offend you, or anything you might 
think materially wrong, to remonstrate with me." And 
again the great and brave man says, " I, for my part, 
could not bring myself to find relief in avoiding the society 
of an old friend, with whom I had been accustomed to 



As differ from us in Opinion. 197 

frank discussion, on account of my differing from him as 
to certain principles, — till, at least, I had made full trial 
of private remonstrance and free discussion. Even a man 
that is a heretic, we are told, even the ruler of a church 
is not to reject till after repeated admonitions." 

Well and nobly said, great prelate and great man ! 
But a man must be a man to act that out. Any infusion 
of the cowardly and sneaky : and then we shall sulk 
privately, but never talk our heart out manfully. 

A way, and sometimes a specially malignant way, of 
treating those who differ from you in opinion, is to pray 
for them, or threaten to pray for them. Let us not speak 
or think of this matter unless gravely and seriously. But 
it cannot be passed by. You remember that country 
clergyman, named in a certain famous book of the last 
century, who threatened the squire of the parish that if 
he did not mend his ways, he would " pray for him in 
the face of the whole congregation." Prayer has some- 
times been made a way of conveying the most wicked 
calumnies against a fellow-mortal. Not long since, at a 
public meeting, an individual took occasion, in a discourse 
which he regarded as a prayer, to ask God's mercy on 
another person who had expressed opinions which he 
esteemed to be mischievous, describing that other person 
as '* that wretched man who was lately pouring forth 
blasphemies against Thee ! " I may add, that the opinion 
described as blasphemous was this : that there is no harm 
in taking a quiet walk after church on Sunday. Now, I 
say there is something perfectly awful in that. If ever 



198 Concerning the Treatment of such 

Satan was disguised as an angel of light, it was when 
wrath and uncharitableness veiled themselves under the 
fair form of prayer ! Let there never be admitted to our 
minds the faintest idea of hitting at somebody in prayer. 
Let it be suggested, as an excellent rule, that prayer for 
such as you think wrong . or bad, be offered privately : 
when you have entered into your closet and shut the 
door, and are making your requests known to your Father 
which is in secret. If that rule were always adhered to, 
it would remove the temptation to that which is evil and 
unchristian about certain intercessory prayers. There 
would be no temptation to pray at the bystanders, rather 
than to the Almighty : no risk of making prayer a means 
of expressing your unfavourable opinion of a fellow-crea- 
ture's character, or doings, or views : no risk of making it 
something like an imprecation of divine wrath, hypocriti- 
cally veiled under the form of prayer. Whenever the 
great thing which you honestly fee] you ought to ask for 
any human being, is, that he may be turned from his 
erroneous beliefs or behaviour, and converted to a better 
mind, ask that of God when you are alone with God. It 
is the safer, better, more kindly, and more humble way. 
To publicly express a very unfavourable opinion of a 
fellow-creature, — even though that opinion be couched in 
the form of a prayer for him, — is not, generally, a friendly 
thing. And it may be doubted whether it is ever a purely 
Christian thing. Let it be said, too, that in such cases 
the avowed imprecation not unfrequently is not a whit 
more malignant than the implied one. To ask that God 



As differ from us in Opinion. 199 

may forgive a man who presumes to differ from you, 
means much the same thing that is conveyed by words 
which, grammatically, mean just the opposite. You re- 
member the two doctors in the Golden Legend. One 
says to the other : 

May the Lord have mercy on your position, 
You wretched, wrangling, culler of herbs. 

The other replies : 

May He send your soul to eternal perdition, 
For your treatise on the irregular verbs. 

It does not need much discernment to see, that here 
the benediction and the imprecation come to just the 
same thing. There is really nothing to choose between 
the blessing and the curse. 

There is in many people a deep disposition to misre- 
present the views of an opponent. In stating the opinions 
of such as differ from us in opinion, it is easy and (to 
some folk) natural, to give these opinions a little twist in 
the direction of extravagance, absurdity, or mischievous- 
ness. Indeed, there are persons in this world who can 
hardly record the sayings and doings of any acquaintance, 
without slightly colouring or twisting them, so as to make 
the acquaintance appear in the light of a fool, or even of 
something worse. But much more is this so, in stating 
the opinions of an opponent. Thus I have remarked 
that in certain American newspapers, which defend the 
peculiar institution of slavery, the opponents of slavery 
are generally called nigger worshippers: as if there was 



200 Concerning the Treatment of such 

nothing between making beasts of negroes and worship- 
ping them. Then you remember how Mr Dickens de- 
scribes an old gentleman who, whenever any one said 
that the poor who are supported by legal charity should 
be treated with something like decent care, would ex- 
claim, " Oh, you want to feed paupers with turtle out of 
gold plates." Some years since, a woman in the west of 
Ethiopia was found guilty of murder. Many people 
thought the evidence on which she was convicted insuffi- 
cient ; and said so. I remember well how much angry 
feeling was excited over a large tract of Ethiopia by 
the case. Those who thought she ought to be hanged, 
and those who thought she ought not to be hanged, 
would hardly speak peaceably to one another. A certain 
newspaper, eager for her hanging, called all those who 
thought there was not evidence enough to hang her, 
believers in Saint Sophia: Sophia was the poor wretch's 
name. You see, in the view of the conductors of that 
newspaper, there was no possibility of saying that you 
were not perfectly sure that a woman was a murderess, 
without going further and saying that you were perfectly 
sure she was a saint. Of course, they were not such 
blockheads as seriously to think that: but they thought 
this a fair way of creating prejudice against the views of 
their opponents. Some habitually treat one who differs 
from them in opinion, as in the cruel days of Rome, per- 
secutors treated the Christians. The persecutors first 
dressed up the Christians in the skins of wild beasts : and 
then set dogs at them. Even so do some unscrupu- 



As differ from us in Opinion. 201 

lous men now, first, horribly misrepresent what an 
opponent thinks and says 3 and then, raise against him a 
howl of heterodoxy : of Atheism, Mormonism, or even of 
Bourignianism. You remember how the Pope declared 
that all such as thought he had better cease to be a tem- 
poral monarch, therein testified their disbelief in the 
immortality of the soul. And once this is granted, it 
becomes easy to show that these are very foolish and 
perhaps very bad men. It becomes extremely easy to 
refute an opponent's views, if you, being a perfectly un- 
scrupulous person, are allowed to state them. For you 
have merely to state them so as to make them rank non- 
sense : and then it is comparatively easy to show that 
they are rank nonsense. 

Now, some folk think opinions which differ from their 
own, such dangerous and evil things, that any means 
whatever is permissible for the putting of them down. 
If a savage tiger was roaming the parish, devouring men 
and women, you would destroy him by the first means 
that came to hand. You would have no Quixotic ideas 
about giving the savage brute fair play : but would shoot 
him, or poison him, or take him in a pitfall, without re- 
morse. Even such is the usage which certain mortals 
give to those who differ from them in opinion. All 
means are fair for putting them down. The grossest 
misrepresentation : the most unfair and delusive argu- 
ments : appeals to ignorant prejudice : all the arts of 
intimidation ; the coarsest and most vulgar railing and 
abuse j are unsparingly employed. But I take for granted 



202 Concerning the Treatment of such 

— and I don't think I am assuming too much — that none 
of you who read this page would degrade yourselves by 
the use of poisoned weapons in dealing with an honour- 
able opponent : and that you are incapable of malignant 
trickery, even if that could gain for your views some tem- 
porary triumph. And, taking this for granted, let me 
say to you : Be sure you properly understand what the 
views of one who differs from you, are. Possibly you 
have in your mind a horrible caricature of them. There 
is many a man who has in his head a theory of an op- 
ponent's character, which is as far from truth as the 
theory of the old astronomy about the movements of the 
stars. Many a man is sure that some one of whom he 
knows next to nothing is a malicious, conceited, stuck-up, 
stupid fool and ruffian, who, if he just came to know 
that being so misconceived of, would find him a plea- 
sant, friendly, and modest man. Indeed, most unfavour- 
able opinions are the result of our knowing very little 
about those of whom we think unfavourably. There is 
a great deal of good about most men and women I have 
ever come to know. So be sure you know exactly what 
the opinions you differ from are. Perhaps, when you 
know them right, you may find that you do not differ 
from them at all. Then, be scrupulously fair in stating 
the views of an opponent. Don't give them the little 
twist in the direction of nonsense, or of wickedness. 
More than this : don't force on them consequences 
which he repudiates. You may think that if a clergy- 
man does not object to an organ in church, this shows he 



As differ from us in Opinion. 203 

wants to set up high mass at once. But if he says he 
does not, you are bound to believe him. You may quite 
fairly say of any man from whom you differ, that in your 
judgment his views, if carried out, tend to such and such 
an evil result : but you have no business to say that he 
sees this, if he says he does not see it. Then, do not in- 
sinuate evil suggestions about those from whom you differ, 
in that sneaky way in which some people are able to in- 
sinuate evil against their neighbours without directly say- 
ing anything. Do not ask, for instance, about some pro- 
fessor of divinity, with a significant look, " Does he hold 
the inspiration of the New Testament ? " — thus convey- 
ing by inuendo that he does not. Under no circum- 
stances call an opponent names. Do not even call him 
names in what may be termed a reflex way : as by say- 
ing, " I say nothing whatever in condemnation of Mr A. : 
I don't venture to judge him : all I say is that if I did so 
and so" (here describe exactly what Mr A. has said or 
done), "I am a pickpocket." Refrain from calling an 
opponent a dog. The other day, I read a passage in 
which an author said of some one who differed from him 
as to the value of his writings, " I left him to his dog's 
paradise, content that he should howl and rot there." It 
is to be confessed that modern abuse lacks the full flavour 
of that of ancient days. Here are some words of Dr 
Martin Luther : " The papists are all asses, and will 
always remain asses. Put them in whatever sauce you 
may, boiled, roasted, baked, fried, skinned, beat, hashed, 
they are always the same asses." The same eminent 



204 Concerning the Treatment of stick 

reformer, in a treatise in reply to Henry VIII., calls that 
monarch "this rotten worm of the earth." The lang-uasre 
of Calvin was a good deal worse. He calls his adversaries 
"knaves, lunatics, drunkards, assassins:" occasionally 
"bulls, asses, cats, and hogs." Erasmus once published 
a dialogue, in which the servile imitators of the Latin 
style of Cicero were cleverly ridiculed. On this a certain 
warm admirer of Cicero rushed to the rescue ; and de- 
clared, in a treatise published in answer, that Erasmus 
was " a drunkard, an impostor, an apostate, a hangman, 
a demon hot from hell." 

These specimens may suffice, of a manner of treating 
those who differ from us not at all to be recommended. 
And at this point it may fitly enough be suggested that, 
in arguing a question with any one, there is no advantage 
in roaring at the top of one's voice. You remember the 
man of whom Addison tells us that he " only raised his 
voice where he should have enforced his argument." A 
consideration which has no weight when stated in a 
moderate tone of voice, does not gain the least accession 
of force by being bellowed. Neither is there any acquisi- 
tion of logical weight, when a man, arguing a question, 
violently whacks the table at which he stands, at brief 
and regular intervals. Indeed, to people of a musical 
ear, that disagreeable sound, constantly recurring, is so 
thoroughly offensive, that it tends to make the speaker be 
heard with an impatience which is all against what he 
says having its due weight. And here it may be said that 
all reasoning which is shouted at the top of a harsh and 



As differ from us in Opinion. 205 

untunable voice, by a man of truculent and ferocious 
aspect, brandishing in the air a clenched fist, and calling 
on all who differ from him to come out and be bullied, 
has on my mind an effect precisely the opposite of per- 
suasive. 

Among the delusive ideas which used to be taught to 
schoolboys, but which for the most part are not taught to 
schoolboys now, was one to this effect : that if two per- 
sons are arguing any question, the one who first gets 
angry is the one who is wrong. We used to be told of 
an Indian chief, who was present at a debate, and who 
said, after it was over, that though he did not understand 
a word that was spoken, he knew, by this sign, who was 
wrong. My impression was, even as a boy, that the 
Indian chief was a near relation of that contemptible 
prig who, when his wife was frightened by a storm at sea, 
suddenly held a sword to her breast and asked her if she 
was afraid, and so on. I have known several very great 
fools, bat I never knew a fool great enough to have done 
that. Anything more grossly absurd than the test of who 
was right and who wrong suggested by the Indian chief, 
could not be imagined. He might as justly have said 
that the first man who took out his handkerchief and 
wiped his face, was wrong. Who is there that does not 
know that there is nothing more likely to make an honest 
man and a fair reasoner angry, than when he sees unfair- 
ness and dishonesty in the arguments and statements 
of his opponent ? Setting aside constitutional differ- 
ences of temper, of warmth of heart, of excitability of 



206 Concerning the Treatment of such 

nervous system — which are the things, after all, which 
have most to say to a man's getting angry or keeping 
cool — I should say that lack of earnestness, of deep con- 
viction, of moral fibre, is the great thing to make a man 
seem calm and tolerant. If you really don't care a rush 
how a question is decided, you will join in the discussion 
of it with great equanimity. There can be no doubt at 
all, that there is nothing which helps a man so effectually 
to show what seems a fair and tolerant spirit in any matter 
as the fact that he really cares nothing at all about the 
matter. You will not show warmth in discussing an 
opinion as to which your feeling is of the coolest. And 
when you are greatly interested in any truth, and deeply 
feel its importance, it is provoking in a high degree to 
find an opponent seek to evade the force of your reasons 
by some shabby and dishonest sophism, or some discredit- 
able misrepresentation. 

It is good for us to see and know people who differ 
from us in opinion, politically, theologically, ecclesiasti- 
cally, aesthetically. It is a great mistake to live always 
among those who think exactly as you do. You will 
grow very narrow, very self-sufficient : you will get a 
quite foolish idea of your own infallibility and importance. 
I have known good men, more than one or two, who 
would have been much better and more useful, had they 
occasionally met and conversed with people who did not 
agree with them. It is a most dangerous thing for any 
human being, to live among those by whom his views 
and opinions are never questioned. We all need to be 



As differ from us in Opinion, 207 

often taken down from our vain self-confidence, and to 
be pushed out of our own way : and all this is best done 
by frequent contact with those who, honestly and civilly, 
think quite differently from ourselves. You may find a 
man here and there, who has long been the pope of a little 
circle, who never question his infallibility, and who laugh 
at all his old and bad jokes : the upshot being, that the 
man came to think himself the greatest and wisest of 
men, and to deem all who differed from him as monstrous 
and anomalous examples of folly and wickedness. Yet 
Samuel Johnson, when he met Wilkes, found him a very 
pleasant person ; and quite discarded the impression that 
any man of Wilkes' principles must have horns and hoofs. 
When you come to know some opponent in controversy, 
of whom you had a most unpleasant estimate in your 
mind, you will in all likelihood discover a great deal of 
good in him. And you may not improbably find, that if 
you differ in some things, there are twice, or perhaps ten 
times as many, on which you entirely agree. 

I grant at once, that it is very disagreeable to hear your 
favourite views controverted. Even men who ought to 
have known better, have been silly enough to regard 
themselves aggrieved by having their views controverted. 
A curious instance may be found in the biography of 
Dugald Stewart, the eminent professor of moral philo- 
sophy at Edinburgh. His assistant and successor in that 
chair (he did not live to succeed to it) was the much 
more gifted, acute, and eloquent Dr Thomas Brown. 
Strange to say, good Mr Stewart seems to have supposed 



2o8 Concerning the Treatment of stick 

that when Dr Brown began to lecture on moral philo- 
sophy, he was just to echo his predecessor's opinions ; 
and was quite aggrieved at finding that Dr Brown did 
not. 

When Mr Stewart was apprised that his own favourite and best- 
founded opinions were controverted from the very chair which he 
had scarcely quitted, and that the doctrines of his revered friend and 
master, Dr Reid, were assailed with severe, and not very respectful 
animadversions, his feelings were strongly roused; and though they 
were long repressed by the peculiar circumstances of his situation, 
yet he has given them full expression in a note in the third volume 
of his "Elements," which is alike remarkable for the severity 
and the delicacy of its REPROOF. 

So you see, Mr, Stewart thought severe reproof was the 
right treatment for a much greater man, who presumed 
to think for himself. Had not Dr Brown just as much 
right to severely reprove Mr Stewart ? I don't hesitate 
to say that in this matter Mr Stewart showed himself 
wonderfully silly and small ; and laid himself fairly open 
to the suspicion of unworthy jealousy of his more popular 
successor. And if Mr Stewart was weak enough to do 
such a foolish thing, we can but wonder that a biographer 
was found who was snobbish enough to record it with 
approval. 

It is disagreeable, let it be granted, to hear your 
opinions controverted. But it will do you good not 
merely in the way of taking you down from that self- 
sufficiency which comes of hearing your own views 
echoed, and which needs "the animated No :" it makes 
you likelier to arrive at truth. To keep aloof from those 






As differ from us in Opinion. 209 

who differ from you, and associate only with such as agree 
with you in opinion, will cut you off from the great ad- 
vantage of hearing what is to be said on the other side. 
No doubt to hear that may cause some painful perplexity 
and effort of decision, which would be saved by hearing 
only one side. We all have been told of the man (of 
course an Irishman), who complained that he saw quite 
clearly the merits of a case when he had heard one side, 
but was horribly perplexed when he had heard the other 
side too. It is to many a most painful effort to make up 
their mind what they are to think. And this painful 
effort will be quite escaped, by keeping away from such 
as think differently from ourselves. It is obvious that if 
you put all the weights in one scale, and none at all in 
the other, you will see with the greatest facility to which 
side the beam inclines. But if what you want to arrive 
at is truth, and not merely certainty of what may be quite 
false, you will weigh the pros and cons. 

And further: in meeting and conversing with those 
who in many ways think very differently from ourselves, 
there is a reward beyond that of hearing what may be 
said against the views we hold. You may find among such 
people the most interesting, stimulating, and sympathetic 
of all companions. There may be great and deep sym- 
pathy of feeling, where there are strong differences of 
opinion : more sympathy, sometimes, by a great deal, 
than with those with whom you intellectually agree. 
Every one has known somebody with whom he was at 
one on almost every material point of belief 3 yet who 



2io Concerning the Treatment, etc. 

exercised the strongest power of repulsion, through the 
utter absence of spiritual sympathy. And where there is 
sympathy, combined with marked difference of belief, a 
raciness, a zest, is given to intercourse, which is wholly 
lacking in your conversation with those from whom you 
are always sure of an unintelligent assent. 

But everything must come to its end ; and this treatise 
like all the rest. I think I have said, somewhere or other, 
all I wished to say. Now, what is the conclusion from 
all this ? I do not think we can get any further than a 
certain good man long ago, who, in a time of heated con- 
troversy, said, " Let us agree as far as we can ; and where 
we cannot agree, in God's name let us agree to differ!" 
Let us all do this, too, without quarrelling : let us give 
our opponents credit for being honest : let us try to put 
ourselves in their place, and to look at things from their 
point of view : let us think how much a man's original 
constitution and the training of his life have to do with 
the formation of his opinions. Let us state the views of 
such as think differently, with a scrupulous and chivalrous 
fairness : let us never say the word of or to an opponent 
that is meant merely to give him pain : and let us make 
up our mind to this ; that while this world stands, people 
who are able to form an opinion at all, will very often 
differ from us in opinion. 



CHAPTER X. 
AMONG SOUTH-WESTERN CATHEDRALS. 

I AM sitting, quite alone, in a shabby comfortless 
little room, dimly lighted by two candles, not of 
wax. The room has a low ceiling : the walls are covered 
with a very ugly paper. The fire is small, and will not 
be made larger. The room is on the level of the street: 
and just outside, close at hand, there is a noise of loud 
and vulgar laughing. This is a little inn, in the chief 
street of a little town. I have had dinner : the meal was 
solitary. The dinner was extremely bad : and the hour 
at which it came plainly appeared to the landlord a very 
late one. I have written several letters, and dipped into 
a volume of dreary theology, the sole volume in the room. 
An hour must pass before one can well go to bed: for it 
is only nine o'clock. So let me begin a faithful record of 
events which happened in a period reaching from Mon- 
day morning to Saturday night, early in this month of 
October. 

At six o'clock this evening, I was walking along a 
gravelled path, leading through fields, to the west. The 
grass was very rich and green : far more so than I am 



212 Among SoiUh-iv est em Cathedrals. 

used to see. There was a magnificent sunset : the air 
was bright blue overhead, but somewhat thicker in the 
western horizon, where all was glowing red. Around, 
everywhere, noble trees ; and the scene was shut in by 
wavy hills. A solemn bell struck the hour, in deep tones. 
Look out towards the sound ; and there, in the twilight, 
you may see three massive square towers. Let us go on 
a little, and we approach an ancient dwelling, surrounded 
by a wall and a moat. The wall is ivied : the moat is 
broad : the water clear as crystal, and not deep. Two 
swans, who are floating about on it, by turning themselves 
up in an ungraceful manner, can reach the ground with 
their bills. The water comes brawling into the moat by 
a little cascade j and it escapes by three sluices, on differ- 
ent sides of the large square space it encloses. Pollard 
elms of great age, the leaves thick and green as at mid- 
summer, are on the further side of the broad walk which 
here skirts the water. This moat was made five hundred 
years ago. Pass on, under an ancient archway : pass in :o 
a great square expanse of green grass, with many fine 
trees. The grand cathedral rises in the midst : all round 
the Green (that is the name here) are antique houses. 
There is a charming deanery : you enter it by passing 
under an arch, and find yourself in an inner court, quaint 
and ivy-grown. No words can express the glory and 
quietness of the place : for this is the ancient city of 
Wells, amid the hills of Somersetshire. The moated 
dwelling is the episcopal palace. There dwelt holy 
Bishop Ken : and there Dr Kidder, who was found will- 



Among South-western Cathedrals. 2 1 3 

ing to take the place from which that good man was cast 
out, was killed by the falling upon him of a stack of 
chimneys. 

Vainly should I seek to express the beauty of the 
scenery, or the magnificence of the Gothic churches, 
which I have seen in these last few days. There is no 
country in the world to travel in, after all, like England. 
And though this be the tenth of October, you might have 
forgotten, for days past, that it was not summer. Bright 
and warm has been the sunshine : thick and green the 
trees ; though sometimes there is the crisp rustle which 
follows the foot stepping on fallen leaves. Yet somehow 
the quiet of a cathedral close is inconsistent with the soli- 
tary feeling of a little-travelled stranger : one ought to 
feel at home to duly be aware of the genius of the place. 
Far, to-night, is the writer from his home : and no doubt 
a little lonely in the strange region. 

Let me look back on what I have seen this week : it 
has been a great deal to one accustomed to a quiet, un- 
varied life. Sunday is beyond question the first day of 
the week : what passed on that day need not be recorded. 
On Monday morning, in a thick white fog, I entered a 
little steamer at the landing-stage at Liverpool. The 
steamer carried many human beings to a place on the 
Cheshire side of the Mersey, named Rock Ferry. There 
we embarked in another steamer : and went on, out into 
the river : till there loomed ahead a huge shape, quite 
familiar, though never seen before. It was the Great 
Eastern : and up its side did the writer go, following the 



214 Among South-western Cathedrals. 

steps of its captain, who has won a name in history. It 
made a Scotchman proud, to look at the brave, quiet, 
sensible Scotch face, which reminded one a good deal of 
the portraits of George Stephenson. Well has Sir James 
Anderson earned the honour done him by his Queen. 
It must have been an awful charge, that great vessel, 
with her crew of five hundred and fifty men, and her 
historic burden of the Atlantic cable. You felt, looking 
at the man, with what implicit confidence you could 
have trusted to him in any emergency or danger. With 
great kindness and clearness he explained the machinery 
for paying out and picking up the cable. He told how 
on a very stormy night of pitchy darkness, he stood at the 
extremity of the stern beside the wheel over which the 
cable was passing ; but could not see it. Only a faint 
phosphorescent point of light, a long way off, showed 
where the cable was entering the water. He told, with 
the vividness of reality, of the tedious endeavours to pick 
up the cable of the former year from where it lay three 
miles down at the bottom of the Atlantic. At last, 
standing on the prow, he heard a stir below, looked over, 
saw the cable fairly there above water ; " and then," said 
the gallant man in his quiet way, " I was very thankful." 
A thing to be wondered at was how the slender cord was 
able to turn all that complex apparatus of heavy wheels. 

Good-bye to the Great Eastern and its brave com- 
mander ; and away from Birkenhead, by railway, in the 
bright sunshiny day. Not long, and there is not unfamiliar 
Chester : on, and Wrexham, with its grand and massive 



Among South-western Cathedrals, 215 

church tower. How these things impress the lover of 
Gothic who dwells in a country of churches of inexpres- 
sible trumperiness and shabbiness ! By Ruabon : leave 
on the right Llangollen, for Yarrow must remain un- 
visited to-day. Never were these eyes gladdened by the 
sight of a lovelier country. So to renowned Shrewsbury, 
on the famous Severn. Here let us stop for a little, and 
have a walk through the town. You pass from the rail- 
way station, under the shadow of an ancient castle : 
elevated a little, on the right, is a considerable Gothic 
edifice of red stone : if you ask what it is of the same 
man whom I asked, you will be told " The College." 
Then you may think of head-master Butler, who was 
made a bishop, and of Dr Kennedy, quite as good a scholar, 
the head-master of to-day. Quaint old wooden houses : 
queer names of streets : one is called Murivance. Rapidly 
let the eyes be feasted : then back to the railway. On, 
for a journey of two hours more. You must pass Ludlow 
unwillingly in the failing light : one cannot see every- 
thing. Then, in the dark, Hereford is reached: the end 
of the day's pilgrimage. Proceed in an omnibus to the 
hotel : there you may have tea, accompanied by mutton 
chops. Afterwards you may go out and enjoy the sensa- 
tion of being in a new city, among new men j and in the 
starlight look at the cathedral. Cats, however, are the 
only creatures who see an edifice, or any other object, 
best in the dark. 

Next day was a lovely summer day : nothing autumnal 
in the air, and hardly anything in the trees. Let us be 



216 Among South-western Cathedrals. 

up early, and have a good walk about the city before the 
hour of service. By the city flows the Wye, " the bab- 
bling Wye." From the bridge which crosses it you have 
a fine view of the cathedral and the palace : here and 
there, about the streets, antique houses of wood. At ten 
o'clock let us pass into the cathedral, under the great 
porch leading to the nave : let us enter an undistinguished 
name in the large volume which lies on a table to that 
end 3 and, obeying the behests of the Dean and Chapter, 
drop into a box with a hole in the lid a great sum towards 
the complete restoration of the sacred building. And it 
is a noble church, nobly restored ; at least in so far as that 
has been done by Mr George Gilbert Scott. Wyatt, un- 
utterable Vandal, put up that execrable western front in 
place of a western tower and spire which fell. The floor 
is of tiles : the roof of the nave is illuminated : there is a 
magnificent rood screen : the choir is sacred to the clergy 
and those who perform the service : the congregation sit 
on rush-seated chairs in the nave. Pleasant it was to the 
writer, who seldom hears choral service now, when those 
whom he had seen enter their vestry a few minutes before 
as shabby little boys, came to their places in procession as 
surpliced choristers : twelve of them, with six singing 
men, making the double choir complete. The congrega- 
tion was small : one did not feel any want of a greater. 
The service was beautifully given : the music was severely 
simple : and how the noble praise thrilled through one to 
whom it can never grow common and cheap ! Pleasant, 
too, to see the perfect propriety of demeanour among the 



Among South-western Cathedrals. 217 

choristers : it did not always use so to be in every cathe- 
dral church. There was an anthem, admirably sung. 
Let it be confessed, one thing revived the writer. Of 
another communion, because dwelling in another country 
and within the bounds of another national church, he felt, 
looking at the noble edifice and joining in the noble ser- 
vice, that for outward dignity and majesty, we in the 
North have nothing to compare with this : and he felt 
decidedly taken down and humbled. But in a little he 
was cheered. That morning there was a sermon. Oh, 
what a poor sermon ! Yes, at least we can beat this, he 
thought : and beat it by uncounted degrees. A church 
which makes the sermon too much the great thing in the 
worship of God, is likely at all events to give you good 
sermons. And though the South may have its great 
preacher here and there, yet sure it is that the average 
preaching of the North, in many a seedy little country 
church, is just as much better than that brief but un- 
utterably tedious sermon at Hereford Cathedral, as Here- 
ford Cathedral is better than the seedy little country 
church. 

Walk all about the cathedral: all about the close. 
Deanery, palace, fine trees, Wye : grammar-school, plea- 
sant walks by river side. Pervade the town : already it 
has grown quite familiar. And as day declines, depart 
by railway to Gloucester, distant little more than an hour : 
studying on the way the photographs of Hereford, city 
and cathedral, which you may buy at various shops. 

Passing through the lovely English landscape, at last 



218 Among South-western Cathedrals. 

you may look out on the right : there is the city of 
Gloucester : there the great square tower of the cathedral. 
Hasten to the Bell : let the luggage be left j we are just 
in time for afternoon service. Again the train of choris- 
ters : here the music was much more florid than at Here- 
ford, and (so it seemed) not so careful and good. The 
church is a noble one : the eastern window, which has a 
curious grey sheen, is as large as any in England. But 
after trim Hereford, the church had a neglected look. 
In some places, plaster has dropped from the roof: plaster 
which should never have been there. And after brilliant 
encaustic pavement, the rude floor of stone in choir and 
sanctuary looked poor. Led by an intelligent verger, let 
us examine the great edifice : the strange, rude crypt : 
the beautiful cloisters. Let us ascend to the triforium, 
and enjoy the varied views of choir and nave thence 
obtained. Here is buried the murdered Edward II. : 
there is a shrine of the richest decorated tabernacle work : 
a recumbent statue of the poor monarch which must be a 
likeness j there is inexpressible pathos in that beautiful 
but sorrowful face. Coming forth from the cathedral, 
let us pervade the close. It is a quiet and charming 
place. The deanery, built up to the west end of the 
church, is striking : the palace, on the north side of the 
choir, seems an ambitious architectural failure. Beautiful 
is the turf and rich the shrubbery at the east end of the 
choir : quaint and pretty various ancient houses in which 
cathedral authorities and functionaries dwell. Passing out 
of the close towards the west under an archway, you come 



Among South-western Cathedrals. 219 

on the statue of Bishop Hooper,, erected on the spot where 
he was burnt. 

Various shops in Gloucester are rich in photographs of 
cathedrals, near and distant. If you walk down towards 
the Severn, you will find yourself amid the bustle of a 
considerable port. Docks of no small size, and abundant 
shipping, form a scene in contrast to the quiet one just 
left behind. But by half-past six it has grown dark : so 
to the Bell, and have dinner. 

The next day was Wednesday : a beautiful warm sun- 
shiny morning. Be early afoot : pervade the city : walk 
about the close. Never seen till yesterday, how familiar 
it looks to-day ; and we sadly part from it as from an old 
friend. But we have far to go to-day 5 and at 11. 15 a.m. 
again the railway train. An hour of rapid running, with- 
out a stop, through rich green fields : Berkeley Castle is 
off there to the right : and here is busy Bristol. The 
cathedral here is poorj but there is St Mary Redcliffe, 
the most magnificent of all parish churches, superior to 
many cathedrals. Yet there is lacking the environing 
close: the grand church is surrounded by dirty streets. 
Here Chatterton, " the marvellous boy," spent the greater 
part of his feverish life j in a room in. the tower he de- 
clared he found the Rowley manuscripts. To the train 
again ; by Bath, Westbury (near which on a hill to the 
left is a large and quite symmetrical White Horse on the 
hill-side, made by cutting away the turf down to the 
chalk), and Witham. If you are fond of changing car- 
riages, you may have enough of it here. At length, as the 



2 1 o A mong So uth- western Ca thedrals. 

sun is declining in glory, you reach that paragon of cathe- 
dral cities in which I am writing : beautiful Wells. 

I have little doubt that if one were to live at Wells for 
several months, and still more for several years, the quiet 
little city would come to look and to feel like anywhere 
else. But now, to a stranger, it is " an unsubstantial, 
fairy place." Hard by is the vale of Avalon ; and the 
ruins of Glastonbury : all round the Mendip Hills. And 
though England can boast of some bigger cathedrals, no- 
where will you find one of more exquisite beauty. No- 
where, too, will you find the ancient cathedral seat so 
much like what it was in ancient days. I shall not be 
tempted into any architectural details : all I say is, Go 
and see the place, and you will be all but intoxicated 
with the loveliest forms of Gothic beauty. 
. Here I ceased for the night, in a sort of bewilderment. 
Next morning was a cloudy one, with flying gleams of 
sunshine. Long before service, let us enter the magnifi- 
cent church and gaze at it. It is in exquisite preservation. 
The light colour of the stone of which the shafts are made 
ndds to their arry grace. The four great piers at the in- 
tersection of the transepts threatened to yield under the 
pressure of the centre tower ; and their bearing power 
was increased by three curious inverted arches, the like of 
which I believe you will not see in England. It was a 
graceful disguising of a defect : but of course they would 
be better away. The stalls in the choir are of stone : an 
unusual material, but the effect is beautiful. 

It is near the hour of morning service ; let us take our 



Among South-western Cathedrals. 221 

place. Carelessly the choir straggles in ; never were 
arrangements more slovenly. The little boys come in, 
not in procession, but in a huddled heap : in a little, by 
himself, the clergyman who is to perform the service. 
Then the dean and the canon in residence come in a free 
and easy way : two or three of the singing men rush 
hastily after them : two singing men scuttle in after ser- 
vice has begun. It was a painful contrast: the noble 
church and the ostentatiously irreverent arrangements. 
The music was good, after the choir got themselves 
settled to their work. But if I were Dean of Wells, 
there should be a thorough turn-over, and that without a 
day's delay. Slovenly, slovenly ! 

Worship over, let us see every corner of the church : 
then climb a winding stair in a transept wall j walk along 
the stone roof of the transept, the lofty wooden one still 
far above your head. Climb, higher and higher, till you 
come out to daylight on the top of the great central tower. 
The first thing that will strike you is not the grand pro- 
spect : it is the rusty creaking of the four weathercocks, 
one on each pinnacle : the sound is eerie. Look round. 
A richly-wooded green country, with undulating hills. 
To the west, the vale of Avalon : that pyramidal hill is 
Glastonbury Tor, three miles off. Below, on the left 
hand, the cloisters : beyond, the palace, with its moat, 
and expanse of greensward. On the other side the 
deanery, and the vicar's close, with a bridge leading from 
it across the road into the cathedral. The country round 
seems to be all grass. One turret of the tower ha? a bell 



222 Among South-western Cathedrals. 

whereon a hammer strikes the hour, being pulled by 
a wire from below. The cloisters have perpendicular 
tracery. In the middle space there is an ancient yew. 
An amphitheatre of hills closes in all the scene. Oh ! 
hard-working Scotland, where no one, except a few folk 
of political influence, is paid without toiling rigidly for it, 
when will you have such retreats for learning and religion, 
combined with very little to do ? 

I esteem "Wells as the climax of my little journey, 
though I went next to Salisbury. I did not leave Wells, 
till I had gone over the beautiful church of St. Cuthbert, 
which is partially restored. Not completely, because the 
dissenters will not agree to a church-rate. 1 thought of 
the Cathedral, and the vale of Avalon, and could but 
hold up the hands of wonder, and exclaim " Dissenters 
here ! " Two hours and a half by railway to Salisbury. 
Hasten to the close : let the most intelligent of vergers 
conduct you through the famous church. Dare we say, 
Disappointed ? I do not allude to the horrible arrange- 
ment of the old monuments, one in each bay of the nave, 
on the floor, midway between the piers ; nor to the stalls 
of shabby deal, painted brown ; nor to the ugly way in 
which the Lady Chapel has been thrown into the choir. 
Even looking at the vast building, with its double tran- 
sept, and its spire, the loftiest in England, I could but 
vaguely say, that I have seen cathedrals which impressed 
me infinitely more. Long neglect laid its hand on the 
great church, till Bishop Denison took it in hand. Much 
work is sroinsf on now : the west front is concealed 



Among South-western Cathedrals. 223 

by scaffolding, and great saws are cutting stone at its 
base : but there is a vast deal yet to do. Rather to undo. 
The execrable hand of Wyatt has been here, obliterating 
and destroying. The spire, of near 400 feet, is a good 
deal off the perpendicular : at the capstone it is two feet 
to the south and near a foot and half to the west. No 
further deviation has occurred for many years. The close 
is large. The ancient deanery is opposite the west front 
of the church ; the palace stands within grounds of 
moderate extent near the Lady Chapel. 

Two miles from Salisbury is Bemerton, hallowed by 
the memory of George Herbert : a mile further towards 
the west is Wilton, where a beautiful Byzantine church 
was built a few years ago by the late Mr Sydney Herbert. 
One regrets that so much cost should have been lavished 
on a building of an inferior style ; however splendid a 
specimen of that style it may be. And eight miles from 
the graceful cathedral of a somewhat wearisome perfec- 
tion, you will find the grandest specimen of the rudest of 
all architecture. There, in the plain, is mysterious Stone- 
henge : "awful memorial, but of whom we know not." 

Stay at the White Hart. In the evening, after dark, 
you may pervade the city, not without its bustle and stir. 
Next day, as long as may be, saunter about the close, and 
look at the cathedral from all points of view. Again 
wander through its interior. I am mistaken if you do 
not depart, vaguely disappointed. 

So to the never- failing train. Basingstoke, Farn- 
borough, on the skirts of Aldershot camp j and in the 



224 Among South-western Cathedrals. 

gathering dark approach awful London : awful with its 
bulk and ceaseless whirl to such as dwell amid quiet 
scenes j awful with its contrasts of the greatest luxury 
and the most abject poverty. Here is Waterloo Station : 
enter the rapid Hansom. And, speeding this Saturday 
evening towards the place of sojourn, look back to Mon- 
day morning, and try to recall what has been beheld since 
then. You give it up, confused. 



CHAPTER XI. 

CONCERNING THE HEADS OF BATTERING-RAMS, 
WITH SOME THOUGHTS TOUCHING THE RE- 
VIVIFICATION OF MUMMIES. 

IT is well understood by such as, in a philosophic 
and candid temper, have studied the histories of 
ancient Greece and Rome, what (in departed centuries) 
was meant by a Battering-ram. There was a long 
and heavy beam, sometimes attaining a length of a hun- 
dred and twenty feet, to one end of which was affixed a 
massive iron head, in form like the head of a Ram. This 
Instrument was suspended by two strong ropes to a cross- 
beam, sustained by two great logs, which in their turn 
were sustained by the earth. When it was desired to 
break a way through the wall of a fortified city, the 
entire apparatus was set up within convenient reach of 
the fated wall. Then the heavy beam, armed with the 
iron head, was swung backwards and forwards by the 
vehement exertion of (possibly) some hundreds of men : 
the head coming at each swing with inexpressible violence 
against the hostile wall. No wall could long remain in- 



226 Concerning the Heads 

tact under that usage. The stones were loosened : cracks 
became manifest : a small opening was made, which grad- 
ually became a large one : finally, a practicable breach 
was made, through which the besieging army was able to 
enter the city. It was comparatively easy to pass through 
the wall, after an opening had been made in it. It was 
exceedingly difficult to make the opening. The ram's 
head was of hard material. Fitly so ; for it had hard 
work to do. Persons of soft material, physically and 
morally, passed in with facility after the ram had done 
its work. And it is probable that a good many of them, 
thus easily entering, did not reflect much upon their obli- 
gations to the battered old head, which had borne the 
brunt, and cleared their way. By this time it had (likely 
enough) been taken down from its supports, and was 
lying in some neighbouring ditch, half concealed by mud. 
Practical and pushing spirits jumped over it, as they ad- 
vanced towards the opening it made : possibly wiped their 
feet upon it. Here and there a man of a sentimental 
nature would put his hands in his pockets and look kindly 
at it for a little while : thinking of the services that iron- 
headed log had rendered : thinking how easy it was to 
enter now where it had been so hard to enter at the first. 
Let us muse, kindly reader, on the Heads of Moral Bat- 
tering-Rams : Human Heads that suffer many hard blows 
in opening a way through old prejudices and abuses. Let 
us think how hardly men fare who bravely set themselves 
to break through these. The days were, in which such a 
head would probably have been cut off altogether : and 



Of Ba tiering- Ra ms. 227 

even yet, all obloquy, all misrepresentation, all malignant 
railing, are the common portion of such men as propose 
improvements, political or social ; and try to bring these 
improvements about. Sorely beaten about the head are 
the Moral Battering-Rams ! Those who first proposed 
Corn-law repeal -, reform of the infamous penal laws 
which disgraced the statute-book till brave men like Sir 
Samuel Romilly saved this nation from the shame of 
them : reform of the scandalous abuses in the Church of 
England and the Establishment in Ireland ; reform in 
the Army, including the abolition of flogging human 
beings to death : the abolition of Negro Slavery ; the 
making the representation of the people in Parliament 
cease to be in great measure a grim farce ; the permission 
of organs in Scotch churches, and of Scotch congregations 
to kneel at prayer and stand at praise : how these men 
were vilified and misrepresented ! Look back over the 
files of various old Tory newspapers and magazines : 
and think what the poor Heads had to come through ! 
By and by, the breach is made in the thick wall of selfish 
interests and unreasoning prejudices : and then, people 
who had neither the courage nor the hardness of nature 
to stand the first buffets, get all the good of them, and 
quietly walk through the breach opened by sorely bat- 
tered Heads of Moral Battering-Rams. After a while, 
everybody sees so plainly that the advocates of Reform 
had all the reason on their side, that people think it must 
have been quite easy to batter down the ancient abuse. 
They say, " Well, that wall was so much off the perpen- 



228 Concerning the Heads 

dicular : the mortar had so crumbled into dust ; that just 
a touch must have sent it down : the old Heads, now in 
their graves, or lying in obscure ditches, could not have 
had such a tough work to do as we fancied." And when 
one who has long survived the fight in which he won his 
fame, gets into the way (like Lord Brougham) of talking 
sometimes about the hard hits he received and dealt, we 
grow impatient of hearing about them. We think it is 
all an old man's talk about the long past. 

Controversy is a hateful thing. Never has the writer 
joined in it, and he never will. But he has watched a 
good deal of it : and he can sincerely say that he never 
yet saw controversy carried on in good temper or in fair- 
ness. He has seen it carried on by men who, speaking 
generally, were good-tempered and fair-tempered men. 
And they began in tolerable fairness and good temper. 
But the controversy had not lasted long till the lurking 
devil was roused : insolence, misrepresentation, savage ill- 
temper, were largely developed ; at least on one side. He 
has seen controversy in which all the fairness and decency 
were on one side : all the opposite things on the other 
side. The more ordinary case is that there should be very 
little fairness or civility on either side. Yet, hateful as 
controversy is, the quiet easy-going men who shrink from 
it may well be thankful that there are pugnacious and 
hard-headed folk who rush into it with gusto, and seem 
to enjoy the strife. For these pugnacious folk do (as it 
were) batter a breach through which the easy-going men 
peacefully follow. Yes, you who know what cowards you 



Of Battering- Rams. 229 

are : you who know that however sure you might be that 
you had truth on your side, you would shrink into your 
shell at the first outburst of abuse from those interested in 
maintaining some flagrant iniquity which you had been 
carried away into attacking 5 look with profound respect 
on the hard heads that take and give hard blows ! You 
could not do it. And it is a pitiful sight to behold a man 
who has ventured to attack something that is wrong, in- 
stantly set upon by those who wish to keep up the wrong : 
then getting frightened ; beginning in a cowardly fashion to 
calculate the consequences of sticking to what he has said j 
seeing that he will get into no end of trouble if he sticks 
to it 5 and finally bullied into retracting what he and all 
who hear him know perfectly to be true. It is a terrible 
thing to have all the will to be the head of the moral 
battering-ram, without the needful hardness ! But it is a 
fine sight, to see a head which is entirely free from soft- 
ness : which is quite hard enough for the work to which 
it is set. There are various things about John Knox 
which one cannot in any way like : but there is something 
sublime about his inflexible and fearless firmness. So 
with Luther : what an inexpressibly hard head of a bat- 
tering-ram ! So in these days with Mr John E right. 
You may think him wrong if you please : but you cannot 
deny his magnificent pluck. You cannot look at the 
determined face of the great popular leader, without feel- 
ing that there is the man to batter down what he thinks 
an injustice. Conservatism is ever the wall to be battered : 
aggressive reformers or revolutionises are the head of the 



230 Concerning the Heads 

battering-ram. And though conservatism serves many 
useful purposes, it is in the nature of things a losing cause. 
It is just a question of time, till any wall is battered 
down : that is, if there be the least show of sound reason 
that down it should go. For the essential idea of conser- 
vatism of course is, to keep things as they are : and that 
cannot be. It was conservatism that raised a terrible 
cry against the introduction of stage-coaches : they would 
drive the old stage-waggons off the road : horses would 
perish : diseases of the brain would be brought on by tra- 
velling through the atmosphere at the awful rate of eight 
miles an hour. Then it was conservatism to raise a cry 
against railways : they would drive off the road the old 
stage-coaches, the glory of England : they would " destroy 
the old English noblesse," as was touchingly remarked by 
a distinguished surgeon, who got a title for cutting a wen 
out of the king's neck. It was conservatism that main- 
tained the fitness of hanging men and women for the theft 
of a few pence. It was conservatism that opposed every 
improvement in the laws of this country which has been 
made in the last thirty years ; for that matter in the last 
five hundred. Bat the battering-ram has done its work: 
and the old walls have gone down, as other old walls will 
doubtless go. Progressive folk may well rejoice that there 
are those who gird themselves up and go forth to fight with 
what they think wrong, at whatever risk. For there are 
very many enlightened persons, who would plainly see 
the wrong, and privately despise the stupidity of such as 
stand up for it, yet who would have no mind at all foi 






Of Ba ttc ring -Ra ms. 231 

the fight, and so would just let the wrong go on and 
nourish. 

We all, daily, see many things wrong. We know that 
we should get much ill-will by pointing them out and 
trying to correct them. We have learned by experience 
how much trouble and sorrow come of proposing and 
carrying even a very small improvement. And so, there 
is a great temptation to sadly sit still, till a braver man of 
thicker skin appears and does the work. Of course, this 
is cowardly. But it is natural ; and grows always more 
congenial to our nature as we grow older. What is the 
use, we mournfully ask ourselves, of getting into all that 
hot water ; and likely enough failing to do any good after 
all ? You lose heart : you cannot bear the strife, the mis- 
apprehension, the misrepresentation. 

In Scotland there is an association of clergymen called 
the Church Service Society. Its purpose is to foster the 
study of ancient Christian liturgies, and thus to cultivate 
a taste for more devotional and becoming language in 
public prayer. For public prayer, in the Scotch Church, 
must be prepared by each minister for his own use : and 
the days have been, in which the standard aimed at was a 
very bad one : partaking more of the nature of theological 
statement and discussion than of reverent prayer. Things 
are much better now : and this society desires, humbly 
and quietly, to promote and direct the better taste now 
prevailing. Its purpose is what has been said, and nothing 
more. But some individuals, of a suspicious temper, 
insist that it is founded to the end of plotting and conspir- 



232 Thoughts touching the 

ing for the introduction of a liturgy into the worship of 
the national Church, which has hitherto regarded anything 
like an authoritative service-book with much aversion. 
These individuals persist in calling the association the 
Liturgical Society. They are well aware that this is not 
its name, and that such a name grossly misrepresents its 
declared design : but they think the name likely to create 
a prejudice in Scotland, and deem it all fair to do so. 
Some timid men have thus been impelled to hold off from 
the. society. A good many more stick to it the closer. 
But he who knows the secret history of all the talks and 
all the correspondence that have been used to detach 
members from the society, and to hinder human beings 
from joining it, has beheld a specimen of how those fare, 
who, in a very small and harmless fashion, take the thank- 
less position of the Moral Battering-Ram. 

Suffer a voice of complaint touching the difficulty of re- 
vivifying mummies. 

A mummy is a very ugly thing : but that is not the 
matter at present to be thought upon. The great point 
is, that a mummy is so thoroughly dried up. All life is 
gone from it, and all elasticity : and you cannot put them 
back again. Once, those sinews were soft and supple ; 
but that was long ago. Try to make those stiff limbs 
walk, those withered fingers hold. It will not do. 

The mummy over which the writer moans is an old 
sermon. A sermon written with great care and preached 
with great heart, four or five years ago. Then it was a 



Revivification of Mummies. 233 

living elastic thing : but try to preach it now, and you 
will find it quite withered and dried up. You fancied, in 
those old days when you wrote it, that it was a possession 
for ever : that is, for as long as each Sunday should call 
you to ascend your pulpit and speak to your congregation. 
And when you delivered it with great pleasure and emo- 
tion, you fancied you would always be able to give it with 
the like satisfaction and warmth. But when, after five 
years, you draw it from its receptacle, and some Sunday 
go and preach it, you will find the life has exhaled. • 

It is a great disappointment. And I am not thinking 
of the crudity and immaturity of your youthful extrava- 
gances. I do not mean that you find your discourse 
written in a turgid and fanciful style which now revolts 
your sobered sense. All those early compositions are in 
the fire, long ago. I mean the discourses you wrote after 
you had attained something like maturity of judgment 
and taste. It is not even that your intellectual and spirit- 
ual standpoint is greatly changed. All that is true, you 
feel as you read it. It is right, every word of it : you are 
sure of that. But the whole thing, that glowed with life 
as you wrote it with a heightened pulse, and as you gave 
it the first Sunday after it was written, is now dead and 
dried up. You are out of sympathy with it. It seems 
very poor. And oh how things to be said to a number of 
your fellow creatures depend for their interest and impres- 
sion on your being able to throw your whole heart into 
them as you say them ! 

If a clergyman's mind be still active, and perceptive of 



234 Thoughts touching the 

what is going on in the moral world round about him, he 
need not cherish the vain belief that when he goes to a 
new parish, he will have many days of tranquil ease, 
during which he will preach over again the sermons 
written in his old one. Each Sunday, at the first, he will 
take out a mummy, and with greater or less disappoint- 
ment, try to make it live and move. Even if the people 
who hear the discourse seem interested in it, the preacher 
knows that all this is a pale shadow of what the thing 
used to be. The old fervour is fled : that fervour which 
never can be simulated, and which must come spontane- 
ous or not come at all. I have heard a preacher who in 
the prime of his physical strength had exercised a wonderful 
power over all who listened to him, in advanced age when 
the old glow would not come. It was touching to hear 
him say the old words that used to touch and melt young 
and old, trying to say them in the old way ; and feeling, 
far more deeply than any one else, how grievous was the 
failure. 

Talking thus of old sermons, let us have a little thought 
upon a question of interest to a good many people. May 
a clergyman, with propriety, now and then, preach one 
of his own published sermons ? 

The common idea is that he ought not to do so : though 
I never yet found any one who could give any distinct 
reason for thinking so. This common idea appears to be 
a mere groundless prejudice. And it is a serious question 
to a man who has published a great number of sermons, 
doubtless those which he esteemed his best, whether in all 



Revivification of Mummies. 235 

coming time he is to be debarred from making any use 
of that laboriously prepared material. 

The purpose of preaching a sermon is to impress on 
those who hear it some important truth. Now, after hav- 
ing once pressed that truth on your hearers, are you never 
to recur to it ? Are you to take for granted that every- 
body has read your sermons ; and read them so recently 
that your views are still fresh in their memory? Then it 
it certain that now and then you will be aware of a strong 
desire to preach something that you have published. You 
know it would be useful to some one in the congregation : 
possibly you know that it is what you need yourself just 
then. Now, in the published discourse you have treated 
that subject as well as you could : are you to go and de- 
signedly treat it in an inferior way, for the sake of making 
a difference ? Nothing of the sort. Just go and preach 
it manfully ; and make no mystery of what you are doing. 
Ninety-nine out of every hundred in the congregation 
will not remember (even if they ever knew) a word of it. 
And those who recognise the thing, will be all the more 
interested in hearing what they have read as interpreted 
by its author. The writer knows, for himself, that in 
going to hear Mr Melvill preach, or Dean Alford, or 
Bishop Wilberforce, he would much rather hear from any 
one of them a sermon he has already read, than a quite 
new one probably not half so good. 

Of course, published sermons are not to be preached 
habitually : not to be preached often : and never to be 
preached at all except to a man's own congregation. A 



236 The Revivification of Mummies. 

preacher must be very poverty-stricken indeed, if when 
he goes to a strange church, he has not something new to 
give. It is quite a different thing with his own, where 
he must produce an incredible quantity of matter in the 
course of the year. Few people have any notion of the 
immense amount of material which regular Sunday duty 
demands. I have a friend who for six years preached 
twice each Sunday in a certain church. In that time, he 
tells me, the sermons he preached in that church would 
make up thirty-four well-sized volumes of sixteen sermons 
each. Of coarse, that man is merely a specimen of hun- 
dreds more. Who that knows the long and hard work 
that goes to the composition of a sermon, but must be 
awe-stricken at the thought of so inconceivable a mass of 
manuscript ? You will say, most of it, possibly all of it, 
was very poor. Likely enough : but then to the middling 
powers of the writer, it was just as great exertion to pro- 
duce it, as to a man of greater ability and information it 
is to produce an article for the Edinburgh. Review, or an 
equal quantity of a volume " which no gentleman's library 
should be without." Now, it seems to me that any fair 
means of lessening that fearful drain ought to be wel- 
comed. If you ask what proportion the old should bear 
to the new, I should say that a twentieth part may very 
fitly be the former. That is, after each nineteen new 
sermons you preach, you may most properly enter your 
pulpit with a published one in your sermon-case. 

Such are the writer's present views. Doubtless they 
may change 3 as others have changed. 



CHAPTER XII. 
GLASGOW DOWN THE WATER * 

UPON any day in the months of June, July, August, 
and September, the stranger who should walk 
through the handsome streets, crescents, and terraces which 
form the West End of Glasgow, might be led to fancy 
that the plague was in the town, or that some fearful 
commercial crash had brought ruin upon all its respectable 
families, — so utterly deserted is the place. The windows 
are all done up with brown paper : the door-plates and 
handles, erewhile of glittering brass, are black with rust : 
the flights of steps which lead to the front-doors of the 
houses have furnished a field for the chalked cartoons of 
vagabond boys with a turn for drawing. The more 
fashionable the terrace or crescent, the more completely 
is it deserted : our feet waken dreary echoes as we pace 
the pavement. We naturally inquire of the first police- 
man we meet, What is the matter with Glasgow, — has 
anything dreadful happened ? And we receive for answer 
the highly intelligible explanation, that the people are all 
Down the Water. 

* Frasers Magazine, November 1856. 



238 Glasgow down the Water. 

We are enjoying (shall we suppose) our annual holiday 
from the turmoil of Westminster Hall and the throng of 
London streets : and we have taken Glasgow on our way 
to the Highlands. We have two or three letters of intro- 
duction to two or three of the merchant-princes of the 
city ; and having heard a great deal of the splendid hospi- 
talities of the Western metropolis of the North, we have 
been anticipating with considerable satisfaction stretching 
our limbs beneath their mahogany, and comparing their 
cuisine and their cellar with the descriptions of both which 
we have often heard from Mr Allan M'Collop, a Glasgow 
man who is getting on fairly at the bar. But when we 
go to see our new acquaintances, or when they pay us a 
hurried visit at our hotel, each of them expresses his deep 
regret that he cannot ask us to his house, which he tells 
us is shut up, his wife and family being Down the Water. 
No explanation is vouchsafed of the meaning of the phrase, 
which is so familiar to Glasgow folk that they forget how 
oddly it sounds on the ear of the stranger. Our first 
hasty impression, perhaps, from the policeman's sad face 
(no cold meat for him now, honest man), was that some 
sudden inundation had swept away the entire wealthier 
portion of the population, — at the same time curiously 
sparing the toiling masses. But the pleasant and cheerful 
look of our mercantile friend, as he states what has be- 
come of his domestic circle, shows us that nothing very 
serious is amiss. At length, after much meditation, we 
conclude that the people are at the sea-side : and as that 
lies down the Clvde from Glasgow, when a Glasgow man 



Glasgow dowit the Water. 239 

means to tell us that his family and himself are enjoying 
the fresh breezes and the glorious scenery of the Frith of 
Clyde, he says they are Down the Water. 

Everybody everywhere of course longs for the country, 
the sea-side, change of air and scene, at some period 
during the year. Almost every man of the wealthier and 
more cultivated class in this country has a vacation, longer 
or shorter. But there never was a city whence the annual 
migration to the sea-side is so universal or so protracted as 
it is from Glasgow. By the month of March in each 
year, every house along the coast within forty miles of 
Glasgow is let for the season at a rent which we should 
say must be highly remunerative. Many families go to 
the coast early in May, and every one is doun the water 
by the first of June. Most people now stay till the end 
of September. The months of June and July form what 
is called " the first season ; " August and September are 
"the second season." Until within the last few years, 
one of these " seasons " was thought to furnish a Glasgow 
family with vigour and buoyancy sufficient to face the 
winter, but now almost all who can afford it stay at the 
sea-side during both. And from the little we have seen 
of Glasgow, we do not wonder that such should be the 
case. No doubt Glasgow is a fine city on the whole. 
The Trongate is a noble street ; the park on the banks of 
the Kelvin, laid out by Sir Joseph Paxton, furnishes some 
pleasant walks ; the Sauchy hall- road is an agreeable pro- 
menade ; Claremont Crescent and Park Gardens consist 
of houses which would be of the first class even in Bel- 



240 Glasgow down the Water. 

gravia or Tyburnia ; and from the West-end streets, there 
are prospects of valley and mountain which are worth 
going some distance to see. But the atmosphere, though 
comparatively free from smoke, wants the exhilarating 
freshness of breezes just arrived from the Atlantic. The 
sun does not set in such glory beyond Gilmore-hill, as 
behind the glowing granite of Goatfell ; and the trunks of 
the trees round Glasgow are (if truth must be spoken) a 
good deal blacker than might be desired, while their 
leaves are somewhat shrivelled up by the chemical gales 
of St Rollox. No wonder, then, that the purest of pure 
air, the bluest of blue waves, the most picturesque of 
noble hills, the most purple of heather, the greenest of ivy, 
the thickest of oak leaves, the most fragrant of roses and 
honeysuckle, should fairly smash poor old Glasgow during 
the summer months, and leave her not a leg to stand on. 
The ladies and children of the multitudinous families 
that go down the water, remain there permanently, of 
course : most of the men go up to business every morning 
and return to the sea-side ever}' night. This implies a 
journey of from sixty to eighty miles daily 5 but the ra- 
pidity and the cheapness of the communication render 
the journey a comparatively easy one. Still, it occupies 
three or four hours of the day 3 and many persons remain 
in town two or three nights weekly, smuggling them- 
selves away in some little back parlour of their dismantled 
dwellings. But let us accept our friend's invitation to 
spend a few days at his place down the water, and gather 
up some particulars of the mode of life there. 



Glasgow down the Water, 241 

There are two ways of reaching the coast from Glasgow. 
We may sail all the way down the Clyde, in steamers 
generally remarkably well-appointed and managed ; or we 
may go by railway to Greenock, twenty-three miles off, 
and catch the steamer there. By going by railway we 
save an hour, — a great deal among people with whom 
emphatically time is money, — and we escape a some- 
what tedious sail down the river. The steamer takes 
two hours to reach Greenock, while some express trains 
which run all the way without stopping, accomplish the 
distance in little more than half an hour. The sail down 
the Clyde to Greenock is in parts very interesting. The 
banks of the river are in some places richly wooded Ton 
the north side there are picturesque hills ; and the huge 
rock on which stands the ancient castle of Dumbarton, is 
a striking feature. But we have never met any Glasgow 
man or woman who did not speak of the sail between 
Glasgow and Greenock as desperately tedious, and by all 
means to be avoided. Then in warm summer weather 
the Clyde is nearly as filthy as the Thames; and sailing 
over a sewer, even through fine scenery, has its disad- 
vantages. So we resolve to go with our friend by railway 
to Greenock, and thus come upon the Clyde where it has 
almost opened into the sea. Quite opened into the sea, 
we might say : for at Greenock the river is three miles 
broad, while at Glasgow it is only some three hundred 
yards. 

" Meet me at Bridge Street station at five minutes to 
four," says our friend, after we have agreed to spend a 

Q 



242 Glasgow down the Water. 

few days on the Clyde. There are a couple of hours to 
spare, which we give to a visit to Lang's in Queen Street, 
the very best place in Great Britain to get one's lunch j 
and to a glance at the Cathedral, which is a magnificent 
specimen of the severest style of Gothic architecture. 
We are living at the Royal Hotel in George Square, and 
when our hour approaches, Boots brings us a cab. We 
are not aware whether there is any police regulation re- 
quiring a certain proportion of the cabs of Glasgow to be 
extremely dirty, and the horses that draw them to be 
broken-winded, and lame of not more than four nor less 
than two legs. Perhaps it is merely the general wish of 
the inhabitants that has brought about the present state 
of things. However this may be, the unhappy animal 
that draws us reaches Bridge Street station at last. As 
our carriage draws up we catch a glimpse of half-a-dozen 
men, in that peculiar green dress which railway servants 
affect, hastening to conceal themselves behind the pillars 
which decorate the front of the building, while two or 
three excited ticket-porters seize our baggage, and offer 
to carry it upstairs. But our friend, with Scotch fore- 
sight and economy, has told us to make the servants of 
the Company do their work. " Hands off," we say to 
the ticket-porters ; and walking up the steps we round a 
pillar, and smartly tapping on the shoulder one of the 
green-dressed gentlemen lurking there, we indicate to 
him the locality of our portmanteau. Sulkily he shoul- 
ders it, and precedes us to the booking-office. The fares 
are moderate - } eighteenpence to Greenock, first class: 



Glasgow down the Water. 243 

and persons who go daily, by taking season tickets, travel 
for much less. The steamers afford a still cheaper access 
to the sea-side, conveying passengers from Glasgow to 
Rothesay, about forty-five miles, for sixpence cabin and 
threepence deck. The trains start from a light and 
spacious shed, which has the very great disadvantage of 
being at an elevation of thirty or forty feet above the 
ground level. Railway companies have sometimes spent 
thousands of pounds to accomplish ends not a tenth part 
so desirable as is the arranging their stations in such a 
manner as that people in departing, and still more in 
arriving, shall be spared the annoyance and peril of a 
break-neck staircase like that at the Glasgow railway 
station. It is a vast comfort when cabs can draw up 
alongside the train, under cover, so that people can get 
into them at once, as at Euston Square and King's 
Cross. 

The railway carriages that run between Glasgow and 
Greenock have a rather peculiar appearance. The first- 
class carriages are of twice the usual length, having six 
compartments instead of three. Each compartment holds 
eight passengers ; and as this accommodation is gained by 
increasing the breadth of the carriages, brass bars are 
placed across the windows, to prevent anyone from put- 
ting out his head. Should any one do so, his head would 
run some risk of coming in collision with the other train ; 
and although, from physiological reasons, some heads 
might receive no injury in such a case, the carriage with 
which they came in contact would probably suffer. The 



244 Glasgow down the Water, 

expense of painting is saved by the carriages being built 
of teak, which when varnished has a cheerful light-oak 
colour. There is a great crowd of men on the platform, 
for the four o'clock train is the chief down-train of the 
day. The bustle of the business-day is over j there is a 
general air of relief and enjoyment. We meet our friend 
punctual to the minute ; we take our seat on the comfort- 
able blue cushions 5 the bell rings ; the engine pants and 
tugs j and we are off "down the water." 

We pass through a level country on leaving Glasgow : 
there are the rich fields which tell of Scotch agricultural 
industry. It is a bright August afternoon : the fields are 
growing yellow ; the trees and hedges still wear their 
summer green. In a quarter of an hour the sky suddenly 
becomes over-cast. It is not a cloud : don't be afraid of 
an unfavourable change of weather 5 we have merely 
plunged into the usual atmosphere of dirty and ugly 
Paisley. Without a pause, we sweep by, and here turn 
off to the right. That line of railway from which we have 
turned aside runs on to Dumfries and Carlisle ; a branch 
of it keeps along the Ayrshire coast to Ardrossan and Ayr. 
In a little while we are skimming the surface of a bleak, 
black moor 5 it is a dead level, and not in the least interest- 
ing : but, after a plunge into the mirk darkness of a long 
tunnel, we emerge into daylight again ; and there, sure 
enough, are the bright waters of the Clyde. We are on 
its south side ; it has spread out to the breadth of perhaps 
a couple of miles. That rocky height on its north shore 
is Dumbarton Castle 5 that great mass beyond is Ben 






Glasgow down the Water. 245 

Lomond, at whose base lies Loch Lomond, the queen of 
Scottish lakes, now almost as familiar to many a cockney 
tourist as a hundred years since to Rob Roy Macgregor. 
We keep close by the water's edge, skirting a range of 
hills on which grow the finest strawberries in Scotland. 
Soon, to the right, we see many masts, many great rafts 
of timber, many funnels of steamers ; and there, creeping 
along out in the middle of the river, is the steamer we are 
to join, which left Glasgow an hour before us. We have 
not stopped since we left Glasgow ; thirty-five minutes 
have elapsed, and now we sweep into a remarkably taste- 
less and inconvenient station. This is Greenock at last ; 
but, as at Glasgow, the station is some forty feet above the 
ground. A railway cart at the foot of a long stair receives 
the luggage of passengers, and then sets oif at a gallop 
down a dirty little lane. We follow at a run : and, a 
hundred and fifty yards off, we come on a long range of 
wharf, beside which lie half-a-dozen steamers, sputtering 
out their white steam with a roar, as though calling im- 
patiently for their passengers to come faster. Our train 
has brought passengers for a score of places on the Frith 5 
and in the course of the next hour and a half, these vessels 
will disperse them to their various destinations. By way 
of guidance to the inexperienced, a post is erected on the 
wharf, from which arms project, pointing to the places of 
the different steamers. The idea is a good one, and if 
carried out with the boldness with which it was conceived, 
much advantage might be derived by strangers. But a 
serious drawback about these indicators is, that they, are 



246 Glasgow down the Water. 

invariably pointed in the wrong direction, which renders 
them considerably less useful than they might otherwise 
be. Fortunately we have a guide, for there is not a 
moment to lose. We hasten on board, over an awkward 
little gangway, kept by a policeman of rueful countenance, 
who punches the heads of several little boys who look on 
with awe. Bareheaded and barefooted girls offer baskets 
of gooseberries and plums of no tempting appearance. 
Ragged urchins bellow "Day's Penny Paper! Glasgow 
Daily News ! " In a minute or two, the ropes are cast 
off, and the steamers diverge as from a centre to their 
various ports. 

We are going to Dunoon. Leaving the ship-yards of 
Greenock echoing with multitudinous hammerings, and 
rounding a point covered with houses, we see before us 
Gourock, the nearest to Greenock of the places " down 
the water." It is a dirty little village on the left side of 
the Frith. A row of neat houses, quite distinct from the 
dirty village, stretches for two miles along the water's 
edge. The hills rise immediately behind these. The 
Frith is here about three miles in breadth. It is Renfrew- 
shire on the left hand ; a few miles on, and it will be 
Ayrshire. On the right, are the hills of Argyleshire. And 
now, for many miles on either side, the shores of the 
Frith and the shores of the long arms of the sea that run 
up among those Argyleshire mountains, are fringed with 
villas, castles, and cottages — the retreats of Glasgow men 
and their families. It is not, perhaps, saying much for 
Glasgow to state that one of its greatest advantages is the 



Glasgow down the Water. 247 

facility with which one can get away from it, and the 
beauty of the places to which one can get. But true it is, 
that there is hardly a great city in the world which is so 
well off in this respect. For sixpence, the artisan of 
Bridgeton or Calton can travel forty miles in the purest 
air, over as blue a sea, and amid as noble hills, as can be 
found in Britain. The Clyde is a great highway : a high- 
way traversed, indeed, by a merchant navy scarcely any- 
where surpassed in extent ; but a highway, too, whose 
gracious breezes, through the summer and autumn time, 
are ever ready to revive the heart of the pale weaver, 
with his thin wife and child, and to fan the cheek of the 
poor consumptive needlewoman into the glow of some- 
thing like country health and strength. 

After Greenock is passed, and the river has grown into 
the frith, the general features of the scene remain very 
much the same for upwards of twenty miles. The water 
varies from three to seven or eight miles in breadth 3 and 
then suddenly opens out to a breadth of twenty or thirty 
miles. Hills, fringed with wood along their base, ' and 
gradually passing into moorland as they ascend, form the 
shores on either side. The rocky islands of the Great and 
Little Cumbrae occupy the middle of the Frith, about 
fourteen or fifteen miles below Greenock : to the right 
lies the larger island of Bute ; and further on the still 
larger island of Arran. The hills on the Argyleshire side 
of the Frith are generally bold and precipitous : those on 
the Ayrshire side are of much less elevation. The char- 
acter of all the places " down the water " is almost iden- 



248 Glasgow down the Water. 

tical : they consist of a row of houses, generally detached 
villas or cottages, reaching along the shore, at only a few- 
yards' distance from the water, with the hills rising imme- 
diately behind. The beach is not very convenient for 
bathing, being generally rocky ; though here and there we 
find a strip of yellow sand. Trees and shrubs grow in the 
richest way down to the water's edge. The trees are numer- 
ous, and luxuriant rather than large; oaks predominate ; we 
should say few of them are a hundred years old. Ivy and 
honeysuckle grow in profusion : for several miles along 
the coast, near Largs, there is a perpendicular wall of rock 
from fifty to one hundred feet in height, which follows 
the windings of the shore at a distance of one hundred and 
fifty yards from the water, enclosing between itself and 
the sea a long ribbon of fine soil, on which shrubs, flowers, 
and fruits grow luxuriantly 5 and this natural rampart, 
which advances and retreats as we pursue the road at its 
base, like the bastions and curtains of some magnificent 
feudal castle, is in many places clad with ivy, so fresh and 
green that we can hardly believe that for months in the 
year it is wet with the salt spray of the Atlantic. Here 
and there, along the coast, are places where the land is 
capable of cultivation for a mile or two inland ; but, as the 
rule, the hill ascends almost from the water's edge into 
granite and heather. 

Let us try to remember the names of the places which 
reach along the Frith upon either hand : we believe that 
a list of them will show that not without reason it is said 
that Glasgow is unrivalled in the number of her sea-side 



Glasgow down the Water. 249 

retreats. On the right hand, as we go down the Frith, 
there are Helensburgh, Row, Roseneath, Shandon, Gare- 
loch-head, Cove, Kilcreggan, Lochgoil-head, Arrochar, 
Ardentinny, Strone, Kilmun, Kirn, Dunoon, Inellan, 
Toward, Port Bannatyne, Rothesay, Askog, Colintrave, 
Tynabruach. Sometimes these places form for miles one 
long range of villas. Indeed, from Strone to Toward, ten 
or twelve miles, the coast is one continuous street. On 
the left hand of the Frith are Gourock, Ashton, Inverkip, 
Wemyss Bay, Skelmorlie, Largs, Fairlie : then comes a 
bleak range of sandy coast, along which stand Ardrossan, 
Troon, and Ayr. In the island of Cumbrae is Millport, 
conspicuous by the tall spire which marks the site of an 
Episcopal chapel and college of great architectural beauty, 
built within the last few years. And in Arran are the 
villages of Lamlash and Brodick. The two Cumbrae 
islands constitute a parish. A simple-minded clergyman, 
not long deceased, who held the cure for many years, 
was wont, Sunday by Sunday, to pray (in the church 
service) for " the islands of the Great and Little Cum- 
brae, and also for the adjacent islands of Great Britain 
and Ireland." 

But all this while the steam has been fiercely chafing 
through the funnel as we have been stopping at Gourock 
quay. We are away at last, and are now crossing the 
Frith towards the Argyleshire side. A mile or two 
down, along the Ayrshire side, backed by the rich woods 
of Ardgowan, tall and spectral-white, stands the Cloch 
lighthouse. We never have looked at it without think- 



250 Glasgow down the Water. 

ing how many a heart-broken emigrant must be remem- 
bering that severely-simple white tower as almost the last 
thing he saw in Scotland when he was leaving it for ever. 
The Frith opens before us as we advance : we are running 
at the rate (quite usual among Clyde steamers) of sixteen 
or seventeen miles an hour. There, before us, is Cum- 
brae : over Bute and over Cumbrae look the majestic 
mountains of Arran ; that great granite peak is Goatfell. 
And on a clear day, far out, guarding the entrance to the 
Frith, rising sheer up from the deep sea, at ten miles' dis- 
tance from the nearest land, looms Ailsa, white with sea- 
birds, towering to the height of twelve or thirteen hundred 
feet. It is a rocky islet of about a mile in circumference, 
and must have been thrown up by volcanic agency ; for 
the water around it is hundreds of feet deep. 

Out in the middle of the Frith we can see the long, 
low, white line of buildings on either side of it, nestling 
at the foot of the hills. We are drawing near Dunoon. 
That opening on the right is the entrance to Loch Long 
and Loch Goyle ; and a little farther on we pass the 
entrance to the Holy Loch, on whose shore is the ancient 
burying-place of the family of Argyle. How remarkably 
tasteful many of these villas are ! They are generally 
built in the Elizabethan style : they stand in grounds 
varying from half an acre up to twenty or thirty acres, 
very prettily laid out with shrubbery and flowers; a 
number, (we can see, for we are now skirting the Argyle- 
shire coast at the distance of only a few hundred yards,) 
have conservatories and hot-houses of more or less extent : 



Glasgow down the Water. 251 

flag-staffs appear to be much affected, (for send a lands- 
man to the coast, and he is sure to become much more 
marine than a sailor:) and those pretty bow- windows, 
with the crimson fuchsias climbing up them — those fan- 
tastic gables and twisted chimneys — those shining ever- 
greens and cheerful gravel walks — with no lack of pretty- 
girls in round hats, and sportive children rolling about the 
trimly-kept grass plots — all seen in this bright August 
sunshine — all set off against this blue smiling expanse of 
sea — make a picture so gay and inviting, that we really do 
not wonder any more that Glasgow people should like to 
"go down the water." 

Here is Dunoon pier. Several of the coast places have, 
like Dunoon, a long jetty of wood running out a consider- 
able distance into the water, for the accommodation of the 
steamers, which call every hour or two throughout the 
day. Other places have deep water close inshore, and 
are provided with a wharf of stone. And several of the 
recently founded villages, (and half of those we have 
enumerated have sprung up within the last ten years,) 
have no landing-place at which steamers can touch 5 and 
their passengers have to land and embark by the aid of a 
ferry-boat. We touch the pier at last : a gangway is 
hastily thrown from the pier to the steamer, and in com- 
pany with many others we go ashore. At the landward 
end of the jetty, detained there by a barrier of twopence 
each of toll, in round hats and alpaca dresses, are waiting 
our friend's wife and children, from whom we receive a 
welcome distinguished by that frankness which is charac- 



252 Glasgow down the Water. 

teristic of Glasgow people. But we do not intend so far 
to imitate the fashion of some modern tourists and bio- 
graphers, as to give our readers a description of our friend's 
house and family, his appearance and manners. We shall 
only say of him what will never single him out — for it 
may be said of hundreds more — that he is a wealthy, in- 
telligent, well-informed, kind-hearted Glasgow merchant. 
And if his daughters did rather bore us by their enthusias- 
tic descriptions of the sermons of "our minister," Mr 
Macduff, the still grander orations of Mr Caird, and the 
altogether unexampled eloquence of Dr dimming, why, 
they were only showing us a thoroughly Glasgow feature -, 
for nowhere in Britain, we should fancy, is there so much 
talk about preaching and preachers. 

In sailing down the Frith, one gets no just idea of the 
richness and beauty of its shores. We have said that a 
little strip of fine soil, — in some places only fifty or sixty 
yards in breadth, — runs like a ribbon, occasionally broad- 
ening out to three or four times that extent, along the sea- 
margin ; beyond this ribbon of ground come the wild 
moor and mountain. In sailing down the Frith, our eye 
is caught by the large expanse of moorland, and we do 
not give importance to the rich strip which bounds it, 
like an edging of gold lace (to use King James's com- 
parison) round a russet petticoat. When we land we 
understand things better. We find next the sea, at almost 
any point along the Frith, the turnpike road, generally 
nearly level, and beautifully smooth. Here and there, in 
the places of older date, we find quite a street of con- 



Glasgow down the Water. 253 

tiguous houses ; but the general rule is of detached dwell- 
ings of all grades, from the humblest cottage to the most 
luxurious villa. At considerable intervals, here are resi- 
dences of a much higher class than even this last, whose 
grounds stretch for long distances along the shore. Such 
places are Ardgowan, Skelmorlie Castle, and Kelburne, 
on the Ayrshire side ; and on the other shore of the Frith, 
Roseneath Castle, Toward Castle, and Mountstuart. And 
of dwellings of a less ambitious standing than these really 
grand abodes, yet of a mark much above that suggested 
by the word villa, we may name the very showy house 
of Mr Napier, the eminent maker of marine steam- 
engines, on the Gareloch, a building in the Saracenic 
style, which cost we are afraid to say how many thousand 
pounds ; the finely-placed castle of Wemyss, built from 
the design of Billings j and the very striking piece of 
baronial architecture called Knock Castle, the residence 
of Mr Steel, a wealthy shipbuilder of Greenock. The 
houses along the Frith are, in Scotch fashion, built exclu- 
sively of stone, which is obtained with great facility. 
Along the Ayrshire coast, the warm-looking red sand- 
stone of the district is to be had everywhere, almost on 
the surface. One sometimes sees a house rising, the stone 
being taken from a deep quarry close to it : the same 
crane often serving to lift a block from the quarry, and 
to place it in its permanent position upon the advancing 
wall. We have said how rich is vegetation all along the 
Frith, until we reach the sandy downs from Ardrossan to 
Ayr. All evergreens grow witli great rapidity : ivy covers 



254 Glasgow down the Water. 

dead walls very soon. To understand in what luxuriance 
vegetable life may be maintained close to the sea-margin, 
one must walk along the road which leads from the AVest 
Bay at Dunoon towards Toward. We never saw trees so 
covered with honeysuckle ; and fuchsias a dozen feet in 
height are quite common. In this sweet spot, in an 
Elizabethan house of exquisite design, retired within 
grounds where line taste has done its utmost, resides, 
during the summer vacation (and the summer vacation 
is six months !), Mr Buchanan, the Professor of Logic in 
the University of Glasgow. It must be a very fair thing 
to teach logic at Glasgow, if the revenue of that chair 
maintains the groves and flowers, and (we may add) the 
liberal hospitalities, of Ardfillane. 

One pleasing circumstance about the Frith of Clyde, 
which we remark the more from its being unhappily the 
exception to the general rule in Scotland, is the general 
neatness and ecclesiastical character of the churches. The 
parish church of Dunoon, standing on a wooded height 
rising from the water, with its grey tower looking over 
the trees, is a dignified and commanding object. The 
churches of Roseneath and Row, which have been built 
within a year or two, are correct and elegant specimens of 
ecclesiastical Gothic : indeed they are so thoroughly like 
churches, that John Knox would assuredly have pulled 
them down had they been standing in his day. And 
here and there along the coast the rich Glasgow mer- 
chants and the neighbouring proprietors have built pretty 
little chapels, whose cross-crowned gables, steep-pitched 



Glasgow down the Water. 255 

roofs, dark oak woodwork, and stained windows, are 
pleasant indications that old prejudice has given way 
among cultivated Scotchmen 5 and that it has come to 
be understood that it is false religion as well as bad taste 
and sense to make God's house the shabbiest, dirtiest, and 
most uncomfortable house in the parish. Some of these 
sea-side places of worship are crowded in summer by a 
fashionable congregation, and comparatively deserted in 
winter when the Glasgow folks are gone. 

A very considerable number of the families that go 
"down the water" occupy houses which are their own 
property. There must be, one would think, a special 
interest about a house which is one's own. A man must 
become attached to a spot where he himself planted the 
hollies and yews, and his children have marked their 
growth year by year. Still, many people do not like to 
be tied to one place, and prefer varying their quarters 
each season. Very high rents are paid for good houses on 
the Frith of Clyde. From thirty to fifty pounds a month 
is a common charge for a neat villa at one of the last 
founded and most fashionable places. A little less is 
charged for the months of August and September than for 
June and July : and if a visitor takes a house for the four 
months which constitute the season, he may generally 
have it for May and October without further cost. De- 
cent houses, or parts of houses {flats as they are called), 
may be had for about ten pounds a month 5 and at those 
places which approach to the character of a town, as 
Largs, Rothesav, and Dunoon, lodgings may be obtained 



256 Glasgow down the Water. 

where attendance is provided by the people of the 
house. 

A decided drawback about the sea-side places within 
twenty miles from Greenock, is their total want of that 
fine sandy beach, so firm and dry and inviting when the 
tide is out, which forms so great an attraction at Ardros- 
son, Troon, and Ayr. At a few points, as for instance 
the West Bay at Dunoon, there is a beautiful expanse of 
yellow sand : but as a rule, where the shore does not con- 
sist of precipitous rocks, sinking at once into deep water, 
it is made of great rough stones, which form a most un- 
pleasant footing for bathers. In front of most villas a 
bathing place is formed by clearing the stones away. 
Bathing machines, we should mention, are quite unknown 
upon the Frith of Clyde. 

So much for the locality which is designated by the 
phrase, Down the Water : and now we can imagine our 
readers asking what kind of life Glasgow people lead 
there. Of course there must be a complete breaking-up 
of all city ways and habits, and a general return to a 
simpler and more natural mode of living. Our few days 
at Dunoon, and a few days more at two other places on 
the Frith, were enough to give us some insight into the 
usual order of things. By seven or half-past seven o'clock 
in the morning the steam is heard by us, as we are snug 
in bed, fretting through the waste-pipe of the early boat 
for Glasgow ; and with great complacency we picture to 
ourselves the unfortunate business-men, with whom we 
had a fishing excursion last night, already up, and break- 



Glasgow down the Water. 257 

fasted, and hurrying along the shore towards the vessel 
which is to bear them back to the counting-house and 
the Exchange. Poor fellows ! They sacrifice a good 
deal to grow rich. At each village along the shore the 
steamer gets an accession to the number of her passengers -, 
for the most part of trim, close-shaved, well-dressed gentle- 
men, of sober aspect and not many words 3 though here 
and there comes some whiskered and moustached person- 
age, with a shirt displaying a pattern of ballet-dancers, a 
shooting coat of countless pockets, and trousers of that 
style which, in our college days, we used to call loud. A 
shrewd bank-manager told us that he always made a 
mental memorandum of such individuals, in case they 
should ever come to him to borrow money. Don't they 
wish they may get it ! The steamer parts with her entire 
freight at Greenock, whence an express train rapidly con- 
veys our friends into the heat and smoke of Glasgow. 
Before ten o'clock all of them are at their work. For us, 
who have the day at our own disposal, we have a refresh- 
ing dip in the sea at rising, then a short walk, and come 
in to breakfast with an appetite foreign to Paper Build- 
ings. It is quite a strong sensation when the post appears 
about ten o'clock, bearing tidings from the toiling world 
we have left behind. Those families which have their 
choice dine at two o'clock — an excellent dinner hour when 
the day is not a working one : the families whose male 
members are in town, sometimes postpone the most im- 
portant engagement of the day till their return at six or 
half-past six o'clock. As for the occupations of the day, 



258 Glasgow down the Water, 

there are boating and yachting, wandering along the 
beach, lying on the heather looking at Arran through the 
sun-mist, lounging into the reading-room, dipping into 
any portion of The Times except the leading articles, turn- 
ing over the magazines, and generally enjoying the bless- 
ing of rest. Fishing is in high favour, especially among 
the ladies. Hooks baited with mussels are sunk to the 
ground by leaden weights (the fishers are in a boat), and 
abundance of whitings are caught when the weather is 
favourable. We confess we don't think the employment 
ladylike. Sticking the mussels upon the hooks is no work 
for fair fingers; neither is the pulling the captured fish 
off the hooks. And, even in the pleasantest company, we 
cannot see anything very desirable in sitting in a boat, all 
the floor of which is covered by unhappy whitings and 
codlings flapping about in their last agony. Many young 
ladies row with great vigour and adroitness. And as we 
walk along the shore in the fading twilight, we often 
hear, from boats invisible in the gathering shadows, music 
mellowed by the distance into something very soft and 
sweet. The lords of the creation have come back by the 
late boats ; and we meet Pater -familias enjoying his even- 
ing walk, surrounded by his children, shouting with 
delight at having their governor among them once more. 
No wonder that, after a day amid the hard matter-of-fact 
of business life, he should like to hasten away to the quiet 
fireside and the loving hearts by the sea. 

Few are the hard-wrought men who cannot snatch an 
entire day from business sometimes : and then there is a 



Glasgow down the Water. 259 

pic-nic. Glasgow folk have even more, we believe, than 
the average share of stiff dinner parties when in town : 
we never saw people who seemed so completely to enjoy 
the freshness and absence of formality which characterise 
the well-assorted entertainment al fresco. We were at 
one or two of these ; and we cannot describe the universal 
gaiety and light-heartedness, extending to grave Presby- 
terian divines and learned Glasgow professors 5 the blue 
sea and the smiling sky; the rocky promontory where 
our feast was spread 3 its abundance and variety; the 
champagne which flowed like water; the joviality and 
cleverness of many of the men ; the frankness and pretty 
faces of all of the women.* We had a pleasant yachting 
excursion one day 5 and the delight of a new sensation 
was well exemplified in the intense enjoyment of dinner 
in the cramped little cabin where one could hardly turn. 
And great was the sight when our host, with irrepres- 
sible pride, produced his preserved meats and vegetables, 
as for an Arctic voyage, although a messenger sent in the 
boat towing behind could have procured them fresh in 
ten minutes. 

A Sunday at the sea-side is an enjoyable thing. The 
steamers that come down on Saturday evening are 
crammed to the last degree. Houses which are already 



* We do not think, from what we have seen, that Glasgow is rich 
in beauties ; though pretty faces are very common. Times are im- 
proved, however, since the days of the lady who said, on being asked 
if there were many beauties in Glasgow, "Oh, no; very few; there 
are only THREE OF US." 



260 Glasgow down the Water. 

fuller than they can hold, receive half-a-dozen new in- 
mates, — how stowed away we cannot even imagine. We 
cannot but reject as apocryphal the explanation of a 
Glasgow wuty that on such occasions poles are projected 
from the upper windows, upon which young men of 
business roost until the morning. Every one, of course, 
goes to church on Sunday morning ; no Glasgow man 
who values his character durst stop away. We shall not 
soon forget the beauty of the calm Sunday on that beau- 
tiful shore: the shadows of the distant mountains ; the 
smooth sea ; the church-bells, faintly heard from across 
the water ; the universal turning-out of the population to 
the house of prayer, or rather of preaching. It was 
almost too much for us to find Dr Cumming here before 
us, giving all his old brilliances to enraptured multitudes. 
We had hoped he was four hundred and odd miles off; 
but we resigned ourselves, like the Turk, to what appears 
an inevitable destiny. This gentleman, we felt, is really 
one of the institutions of the country, and no more to be 
escaped than the income-tax. 

Morning service over, most people take a walk. This 
would have been regarded in Scotland a few years since 
as a profanation of the day. But there is a general air of 
quiet ; people speak in lower tones ; there are no joking 
and laughing. And the Frith, so covered with steamers 
on week-days, is to-day unruffled by a single paddle- 
wheel. Still it is a mistake to fancy that a Scotch Sunday 
is necessarily a gloomy thing. There are no excursion 
trains, no pleasure trips in steamers, no tea-gardens open : 



Glasgow dow?i the Water. 261 

but it is a day of quiet domestic enjoyment, not saddened 
but hallowed by the recognised sacredness of the day. 
The truth is, the feeling of the sanctity of the Sablath is 
so ingrained into the nature of most Scotchmen by their 
early training, that they could not enjoy Sunday pleasuring. 
Their religious sense, their superstition if you choose, 
would make them miserable on a Sunday excursion. 

The Sunday morning service is attended by a crowded 
congregation : the church is not so full in the afternoon. 
In some places there is evening service, which is well 
attended. We shall not forget one pleasant walk, along 
a quiet road bounded by trees as rich and green as though 
they grew in Surrey, though the waves were lapping on 
the 'rocks twenty yards off, and the sun was going down 
behind the hills of Cowal, to a pretty little chapel where 
we attended evening worship upon our last Sunday on 
the Clyde. 

Every now and then, as we are taking our saunter by 
the shore after breakfast, we perceive, well out in the 
Frith, a steamer, decked with as many flags as can pos- 
sibly be displayed about her rigging. The strains of a 
band of music come by starts upon the breeze ; a big 
drum is heard beating away when we can hear nothing 
else j and a sound of howling springs up at intervals. 
Do not fancy that these yells imply that anything is wrongj 
that is merely the way in which working folk enjoy them- 
selves in this country. That steamer has been hired for 
the day by some wealthy manufacturer, who is giving his 
"hands" a day's pleasure-sailing. They left Glasgow at 



262 Glasgow down the Water. 

seven or eight o'clock : they will be taken probably to 
Arran, and there feasted to a moderate extent ; and at 
dusk they will be landed at the Broomielaw again. We 
lament to say that very many Scotch people of the work- 
ing class seem incapable of enjoying a holiday without 
getting drunk and uproarious. We do not speak from 
hearsay, but from what we have ourselves seen. Once or 
twice we found ourselves on board a steamer crowded 
with a most disagreeable mob of intoxicated persons, 
among whom, we grieve to say, we saw many women. 
The authorities of the vessel appeared entirely to lack 
both the power and the will to save respectable passengers 
from the insolence of the " roughs." The Highland fling 
may be a very picturesque and national dance, but when 
executed on a crowded deck by a maniacal individual, 
with puffy face and blood-shot eyes, swearing, yelling, 
dashing up against peaceable people, and mortally drunk, 
we should think it should be matter less of aesthetical than 
of police consideration. Unless the owners of the Clyde 
steamers wish to drive all decent persons from their boats, 
they must take vigorous steps to repress such scandalous 
goings-on as we have witnessed more than once or twice. 
And we also take the liberty to suggest that the infusion 
of a little civility into the manner and conversation of 
some of the steam-boat officials on the quay at Greenock, 
would be very agreeable to passengers, and could not 
seriously injure those individuals themselves. 

What sort of men are the Glasgow merchants ? Why, 
courteous reader, there are great diversities among them. 



Glasgow down the Water. 263 

Almost all we have met give us an impression of shrewd- 
ness and strong sense 3 some, of extraordinary tact and 
cleverness — though these last are by no means among the 
richest men. In many cases we found extremely un- 
affected and pleasing address, great information upon 
general topics — in short, all the characteristics of the cul- 
tivated gentleman. In others there certainly was a good 
deal of boorishness ; and in one or two instances, a ten- 
dency to the use of oaths which have long been unknown 
in good society. The reputed wealth of some Glasgow 
men is enormous, though we think it not unlikely that 
there is a great deal of exaggeration as to that subject. 
We did, however, hear it said that one firm of iron mer- 
chants realised for some time profits to the extent of 
nearly four hundred thousand a-year. We were told of 
an individual who died worth a million, all the produce 
of his own industry and skill $ and one hears incidentally 
of such things as five-hundred-pound bracelets, thousand- 
guinea necklaces, and other appliances of extreme luxury, 
as not unknown among the fair dames of Glasgow. 

And so, in idle occupations, and in gleaning up par- 
ticulars as to Glasgow matters according to our taste 
wherever we went, our sojourn upon the Frith of Clyde 
pleasantly passed away. We left our hospitable friends, 
not without a promise that when the Christmas holidays 
come we should visit them once more, and see what kind 
of thing is the town life of the winter time-in that warm- 
hearted city. And meanwhile, as the days shorten to 
chill November, — as the clouds of London smoke drift by 



264 Glasgow down the Water, 

our windows, — as the Thames runs muddy through this 
mighty hum and bustle away to the solitudes of its last 
level, — we recal that cheerful time with a most agreeable 
recollection of the kindness of Glasgow friends, — and of 
all that is implied in Glasgow Down the Water. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
A LITTLE TOUR IN MAY. 

IF the reader, on any occasion when he has a few days 
to spare, will preach twice every Sunday for twenty 
months, likewise a great many times on week days, besides 
doing as well as he can all the other duty of the incumbent 
of a large parish, it may be predicted with considerable 
confidence that the result will be, that the reader will 
feel very tired and exceedingly stupid. The work comes 
to be grinding : it loses its zest : foot and heart are heavy. 
Then the reader will know the blessing of a little rest : 
that is, if he can get it. Likewise he will understand the 
blessing of a season of change, as total as may be, out of 
the wonted round. Great will be the enjoyment of change 
and rest: animated the rebound with which the daily 
task will be returned to, after these. 

Total has been the change from the writer's common 
habitude of life, through certain days of this ungenial 
May : complete his rest from the regular round of duty. 
These days began with the Monday morning of one week, 
and ended with the Friday evening of the next. How 
many fresh scenes : how many pleasing impressions : what 



266 A little Tour in May. 

views of new cities and men ; may be included in that 
space ! How the wonted burden falls from the back, 
when all the parochial worries, all the sick, the schools, 
even the church with its pulpit ever craving more ser- 
mons, are hundreds of miles away. 

A little reflection will enable the intelligent reader to 
discern that the day before the first Monday of which 
mention has been made, must have been Sunday. And 
indeed it was so. On that Sunday the writer preached 
twice : once in a Scotch parish church of great size and 
immemorial years : once in a modest chapel, Norman in 
its architecture, needful for the further accommodation of 
his parishioners. On Monday morning let us arise from 
slumber at half-past four o'clock : shiver in the wonted 
tub, specially chilly at that early hour : earnestly reflect 
whether or not everything has been packed up that needed 
so to be : solemnly partake of the unseasonable breakfast, 
at which two little faces attended with the air of dissatis- 
faction and sorrow : and finally at 6.20 a.m. roll away in 
a railway carriage, leaving the same little faces behind on 
the seedy platform, to go away home alone. 

In this world we must be always saying good-bye : and 
in many cases to say good-bye can never cease to be a 
trial, less or greater. Yet let us fare onward, through the 
raw air, somewhat cheered by a certain clever weekly 
publication, made up of a series of dissertations on mat- 
ters political and literary. You are made to feel, studying 
that document, that the political dissertations are done 
by the stronger hands, and the literary by the weaker. 






A little Totcr in May. 267 

Three hours does that travelling by railway last : the miles 
are forty-five only ; but the stations are many and grievous ; 
and at a certain period of the way you must quit your 
carriage, and hasten down a broad and sloping pier, where 
you enter a lumpish but serviceable steam-vessel, which 
will bear you five miles across a stormy arm of the sea, 
ever vexed by a tumbling swell. Here you may luxuriously 
sit in a large cabin on deck ; and, as a growing squeamish- 
ness overtakes you, survey your sickening fellow-passen- 
gers. Having crossed that rolling water, you may enter 
another railway carriage, which, after a stiff pull up-hill, 
and a season in a specially gloomy tunnel, will suddenly 
place you in the midst of a great and beautiful city, ever 
fair to see. 

Here you stop for half-an-hour : and when you again 
proceed, you will find the rate of progress quite different. 
For the leisurely train, that stops every few miles, doing 
its five and forty miles in three hours, you are taken in 
hand by a swift express, which in ten hours and a half 
devours four hundred miles. It is known to many by the 
name of the English Express : such as regard it from a 
southern point of view have been known to call it the 
Flying Scotchman. Passing forth from the ancient city, 
you scurry at a tremendous rate through rich fields, per- 
fect in their agriculture : till at length, traversing a lofty 
bridge of many arches which spans a broad river, you enter 
upon another country : and here, if a Scotchman, you may 
drop a tear at having quitted your native land. Various 
Scotchmen and several Scotchwomen has the writer beheld, 



268 A little Tour in May, 

upon that spot, thus quit their native soil : but so firm is the 
Scottish self-command, so iron is the Scottish will, that 
never once did he behold a compatriot drop a tear. But 
as they read their newspaper or their novel, with a com- 
posed countenance that disguised the throbbing heart, the 
thoughtless stranger would have deemed that they did not 
care a straw. In Mrs Barrett Browning's beautiful poem 
called The Mask, you may find apposite reflections. 

We are in Northumberland : for some miles the sea is 
near, on the left hand. And passing onward through a 
territory of no special interest, we plunge into the smoke 
of Newcastle. Dreary are the views of human habita- 
tions, caught from the rapid train as you look down in 
passing by. Doubtless there are many of our race who 
live amid scenes of unutterable ugliness : a life of constant 
struggle and pinching, year after year. Passing near the 
black and worn walls of the castle, built by Robert, the 
son of the Conqueror, you enter the curious station, whose 
long roofs are singularly twisted round. The station is a 
segment of a circle : and so many are its trains and plat- 
forms, so considerable its distances, so many its waiting 
rooms, so great its bustle, that here the stranger has often- 
times found it easy to lose his way. A little pause here : 
then the train departs from the station by the way it 
entered : but in a few yards turns sharp to the right, and 
is on Stephenson's wonderful high-level bridge, whence 
you look down from a great elevation on the very dirty 
Tyne. The bridge is wonderful, but not in the least 
beautiful. A succession of great piers, rising from the 



A little Tour in May. 269 

river bed, bears up the railway track ; beneath which a 
way for ordinary carnages and foot passengers is hung. 
On, not very many miles, till a human voice, strongly 
exerted, proclaims the name of Leamside. That word 
falls with thrilling effect upon the ear of the pilgrim from 
the North : the pilgrims, indeed, for now there are two. 
Rapidly are the things which strew the carriage accumu- 
lated : many papers and books are engulfed in the ready 
maw of a black morocco bag, wonderful in its power of 
continence : and emerging from the carriage door, the 
pilgrim who takes the larger part of the trouble hastens 
to the van at the end of the train. With joy he finds that 
the van has already disgorged that which is to him of 
greater interest than all the rest of the luggage put to- 
gether. Admirable is the civility of the officials of that 
railway : perfect their accuracy. There, on the platform, 
they lie, all right. Ye might see a portmanteau, of the 
hue of the spring daffodil, or of the rising sun of summer : 
and likewise a large trunk, black as the raven's wing, or 
the ebon shades of starless night. I am gratified by these 
examples of poetic imagery. They remind me, touch- 
ingly, of the prize essays I used to write in my earlier 
years at college, ere yet the buoyancy of the youthful 
spirit had been sobered down. 

Yes, all this way have we travelled, to the end of 
visiting a spot, now but a few miles away. For when 
the bustle of the bigger and more important train has 
passed, and that train is winging its rapid way towards 
the May hailstones of the frozen South, you may turn to 



270 A little Tour in May. 

the other side of the platform on which you stand. There 
you discover another and shorter train. On its carriages 
you may read the words Durham and Bishop Auckland. 
You enter one of these : only for ten minutes will you 
have to sit within it. At the end of that time you stop 
at a station set on a high ground, whence you look down 
on a little rambling city, dominated by a magnificent 
church of great length, with two massive though low 
western towers, and a vast central one. In the same 
view with the magnificent church, standing on the same 
vantage ground, you see what was once a grand castle, 
the residence of bishops who were princes of the church. 
It is now allotted to the use of a university, of small poli- 
tical account. 

That is the first impression of Durham Cathedral. 
The railway leaves you only on the outskirts of the little 
city. Entering an omnibus, you will be conveyed away 
down a steep hill, halfway down which you will twice 
pass underneath a great viaduct of lofty arches, that spans 
the town, and carries the railway on towards Bishop Auck- 
land. Twice will you cross the river, which winds about 
and about the ancient spot, the etymological meaning of 
whose name is the hill with the cincture of water : and 
you will go up and down several steep though short hills ; 
before you stop at the door of the County Hotel. There 
let the baggage be left : and forthwith hasten to the 
cathedral. Evening prayers are at four o'clock : and there 
is yet an hour to make a first acquaintance with the site 
and aspect of the glorious pile. 



A little Tour in May. 2 7 1 

St Cuthbert, as every one knows,, found it difficult to 
make up his mind after his death as to the place where 
his bones should rest. He tried various places, but was 
dissatisfied. Finally he rested in this beautiful place, 

Where his cathedral, huge and vast 
Looks down upon the Wear. 

And Sir Walter has exactly caught the main character- 
istic of this church's unrivalled situation. It does look 
down upon the Wear. The wooded bank falls away from 
the cathedral to the river : and the river so winds that it 
passes close under both the eastern and the western ends 
of the church. The church, with its length of 464 feet, 
stands across the isthmus which keeps a little peninsula 
from being wholly an island. The bank seems some fifty 
feet in height : it is richly wooded with trees now covered 
with their first fresh green : and below there runs the 
deep and rapid river. The elevated ground on which the 
cathedral stands is large enough to include the noble old 
castle, and the many houses of the close, some with beau- 
tiful gardens going down to the water. Let us enter the 
sacred place. A door, in the nave, near its west end, is 
covered by a large and heavy leathern cushion : push it 
aside ; and by the time it has banged back to its place, 
you are within. What words can express the overwhelm- 
ing grandeur of the first cathedral of the first class you 
enter, after a good many months where cathedrals are not 
at all \ You see the noble church from end to end ; no 
screen parts choir from nave. Fifty feet of the length 
named must be deducted from the vista, the Galilee of five 



272 A little Tour in May. 

aisles at the west end of the nave. fC Rocky solidity and 
indeterminate duration " were the things that impressed 
Johnson here. Here it has stood, the same building, 
though often touched by hands reverent and sacrilegious, 
for near nine hundred years. In the main, the architec- 
ture is Norman : round headed arches everywhere. There 
is a lack of stained glass : at the east end is a grand rose 
window, filled with fragments of ancient glory : but be- 
low, throwing into shadow the beautiful reredos, with a 
relief of the Last Supper for altar-piece, are three glaring 
lancets, unsubdued by colour of any kind. 

So much one can see before the hour of service : as that 
approaches, sit down on one of a number of open seats, 
placed under the great central lantern, outside the choir. 
The choristers straggle in without order : the congrega- 
tion is small. The service is carefully and well done : the 
music very beautiful : several very fine voices in the choir, 
specially among the boys. The anthem was Spohr's As 
pants the hart : one little fellow sang the soprano solo in 
a voice of exquisite quality and great power. 

Service being over, you may further survey the un- 
rivalled situation of this grand church. The sloping 
wooded bank that reaches to the river is traversed by the 
most charming walks, free to all comers. And from 
many points in these, notably from a bridge that spans 
the river amid what looks like the park around some 
princely dwelling, you have diverse but ever beautiful 
views of the cathedral. It is utterly vain, by any words, 
to try to express the awe and delight with which, coming 



A little Tour in May. 273 

from a region where the old ecclesiastical buildings are 
mainly in ruins or else debased into hideousness, you will 
regard this majestic pile. People who see it every day 
probably become accustomed to it, and care very little 
about it. Well, we have the advantage of them. 

But not even under the shadow of Durham Cathedral 
can human nature be sustained without food. Let us 
return to the hotel, where by this time dinner waits. 
And then, in the fading light, again to the cathedral, and 
stand and look at it. Let the reader believe that the 
writer is quite capable of giving an exact account of its 
architectural peculiarities : but not on this page shall that 
be found. Yet it may be noted, as something distinctive, 
that the east end of the choir is formed by a sort of tran- 
sept, which internally takes the place of a Lady chapel, 
and bears the name of the chapel of the nine altars. 
Otherwise the place preserves the usual outline : choir, 
nave, and transepts : two western towers and a central 
one: the Galilee at the west end: the cloisters at the 
south side of the nave, with a flat roof of antique oak. 
And if it should happen to you as it did to me, as you 
stand by a western tower you will be startled by a bell of 
the deepest tone, telling nine o'clock, and then gradually 
dying into silence through a long vibration. 

If on the next morning you are up early, surveying the 
cathedral from many points of view : if you go to service 
at ten o'clock, and pervade .every part of the interior j 
refusing to be distracted by monuments and statues of 
bishops earlier and later, and seeking only to drink in and 



2 74 -A little Tour in May. 

appropriate the character and feeling of the place : then 
you may go away from Durham by the train at 11.45 
a.m., feeling that you have made it a possession for ever. 
Indeed by a visit no longer than that here related, the 
lover of Gothic architecture may know this or any other 
grand church far better than many a man who has lived 
beside it for years. Other cathedrals invite us : this is but 
the first : wherefore we depart. 

Leamside again. For several miles after leaving that 
station, you have many striking prospects of the cathedral 
now left behind : so look out sharply on the right hand 
of the train. Darlington, where are many Quakers : a 
large red station with a broad platform : and at three 
o'clock you are at York. You have passed within a 
quarter of an hour of Ripon Cathedral : and when time 
abounds, it would be worth while visiting it. But to-day 
it must be left. Time is short : and far other than that 
respectable structure are those which lie before us. 

In the minds of many, the railway station at York is 
associated with the hurried dinner of the express train 
from North to South, or South to North : of which (who 
can say why?) roast mutton and brown potatoes never 
fail to form part. Now, there is the sense of comparative 
leisure. Let rooms be secured at the station hotel : then 
depart from the railway, and in a little you will cross the 
Onse by a handsome iron bridge. Every time you pass 
it, there recurs the irritation of paying a halfpenny. This, 
recurring many times in the day, is in a high degree 
exasperating. Soon after passing the bridge, the noble 



A little Tottr in May. 275 

west front of the minster comes into view : two massive 
towers, and a glimpse of the lofty central one, over the 
intersection of the transepts. On the left hand, as you 
approach the cathedral, there stands a Roman Catholic 
church, lately finished. Its door is open : its interior is 
worth a visit. As you quit it, a grave man, in ecclesias- 
tical habit, presents an oaken box, into which you drop a 
moderate sum. Quitting the graceful but slight Roman 
edifice, you appreciate the better the great mass of the 
Anglican. York Minster has not the wonderful advan- 
tages of situation which Durham Cathedral possesses. It 
stands on a level space : a street skirts it on the south 
side ; at the north is a green enclosure of refreshing grass 
and trees, where are the handsome deanery and the re- 
sidence of the canon for the time being. Here, as at 
Durham, the episcopal palace is miles away : doubtless a 
loss. Enter by a lesser western door. You are struck 
first by the great breadth of the nave. Then the roof of 
the central vault is loftier than Durham : the choir here 
has a height of 102 feet ■ Durham but 76. But the choir 
here is the loftiest in England, surpassing Westminster 
Abbey by one foot ; yet only 12 feet higher than the 
choir of the comparatively small cathedral of Glasgow. 
Here, too, stained glass abounds : there is a grand eastern 
window : a like western one : and the window of the 
north transept is the famous Five Sisters of York. No 
long time now for details, for evening prayer is at half- 
past four. Durham choir seemed fine, to one who had 
not heard choral service for many months : but that of 



276 A little Tour in May. 

York is incomparably better. It is far more powerful. 
At Durham the choir consisted of six men and ten boys : 
here were fourteen boys and eleven men. Then the con- 
gregation was large enough to give a warm and hearty 
look to the worship : almost all the stalls were filled. 
Among the occupants of these were several ladies, dressed 
as nuns. They are Anglican sisters of mercy. It is easy 
to ridicule the unbecoming garb : yet we can see various 
reasons for it. Never was heartier or more beautiful ser- 
vice in a cathedral on a common week-day afternoon. 

Let us not be worried with the monuments of departed 
archbishops, in most of whom one feels no special inter- 
est : just walk about the church and look at it. The 
choir and nave are equal in length : the choir is narrower 
than the nave. East and west ends of the minster are 
square. The transept, with aisles, is half the length of 
the whole church. The nave is of the decorated style of 
Gothic : the choir is perpendicular, and towards its eastern 
end the walls are almost all window. The roof looks 
like stone, but is of wood. Twice has this church been 
on fire. In 1829, a maniac named Martin, brother of the 
painter, set it on fire of deliberate purpose : the stalls and 
roof of the choir perished. Eleven years later, through 
the neglect of some workmen, the centre vault of the 
roof was burnt, though even the windows of the clerestory 
were mamly unharmed. The bell in the north-west 
tower is the Great Peter ; it weighs near eleven tons. 
The chapter-house has been restored. It has a high- 
pitched wooden roof, wanting any central shaft. Having 



A little Tour in May. 277 

satiated yourself with the interior, you may come out, 
and walk a great many times round the cathedral. What 
can be said in its praise ? Surely it is worthy of the 
worship co which it is dedicated! And looking at it 
outside and in, one recalls the ancient story, that a devout 
woman, accustomed to attend the early worship at six 
each morning, awoke too early on a sunshiny summer 
day, and hastened to the cathedral, fearing to be late. 
Then, entering the door, she beheld the choir crowded by 
angels, offering their praises in such sublime music as 
human ear never heard before. 

Finally turn away, and walk as far as you can on the 
;vall which still partly encircles the town. At one spot, 
by two pointed arches of great span, it reaches across the 
railway. Descending from the wall, when you can follow 
it no farther, pervade the city in all directions. There are 
many antique streets, many quaint nooks, many curious 
and ancient churches. 

Next day was Wednesday. It was a cold dark day, 
with a bitter east wind. Service is at ten : but before 
that, there is time to visit the curious town-hall, with a 
wooden roof, aisled : and farther to explore the streets. 
At service the cathedral was beautiful as ever : but the 
congregation was small 5 and though the music was still 
very good, the choir was abated in numbers. No anthem : 
the litany takes up more than the time for it. The litany 
is sung from a litany stool, placed near the west end of the 
choir. At length, with the feeling that York Minster will 
always be to us a familiar place, we turn away from it : 



278 A little Totir in May. 

and by a very crowded train, which goes at 12.10, and 
which seems to be the favourite train whereby Yorkshire 
folk go to London, we pass beneath one of the large 
pointed arches under the city wall, and hasten fast towards 
the south. 

A good many miles are traversed, and here is Doncaster. 
That is the beautiful parish church, about which Mr Deni- 
son wrote his pleasant lectures on church-building. Nave, 
chancel, transepts, massive square tower where transepts 
intersect. On again, and here is Retford. This is the 
place where we must leave the train. Wait awhile, in a 
keen wind, till another is drawn up at the platform, 
wherein we proceed towards the east. Often we look 
out, looking from the left side of the carriage. At last, 
on a height towering above the flat Fen country, there it 
is : Lincoln Cathedral. Three hours convey the traveller 
from the one grand church to the other. Let it be said 
at once, the first view of Lincoln, from the railway from 
Retford, is disappointing. You come full on the west end 
of the cathedral : and the towers do not make a pleasing 
group. The two western towers look slight, after the 
massive ones of York and Durham : and the beautiful 
details of the incomparable central tower are not visible at 
a distance. By and by, the railway leaves the cathedral 
a little to the left : and here one sees the great length of 
the pile, and its commanding position. Lincoln and York 
are precisely equal in length : 486 feet. 

Having stopped at Lincoln railway station, you may 
give your baggage in charge to the porter of the Great 






A little Tour in May. 279 

Northern Hotel, which stands hard by the railway, a 
hundred yards from the station. The trains run under 
its windows : and the yell of passing engines and the 
tremor of heavy carriages pervade the hotel night and 
day. Otherwise, it is good and comfortable. Speedily 
quitting its walls, you go away, right up the hill. You 
pass, at right and left, two very quaint and tumble-down 
looking churches. You pass under an ancient gateway, 
spanning the street, here crowded with country-folk, the 
holiday garb of the men being chiefly characterised by 
waistcoats of gorgeous colour, not hidden by any coat. 
Then the climb becomes steeper : till at length the street 
becomes the most truly precipitous which the writer has 
ever trod. Finally, passing under an ancient gateway, you 
stand close beneath the western front of the church. 

The western front is very curious. It. was originally 
Norman : then an early English screen has been built 
before it, which however does not conceal the central part 
of the old front. There remain two rude-looking Norman 
arches, set in a frame of rich pointed arcade work. One 
certainly feels the want of glass to break the great flat ex- 
panse of masonry. This front has a breadth of 173 feet: 
thus surpassing York by more than 60 feet. But then at 
York you see the bona Jide breadth of the church : here 
it is a deceptive screen stuck on. "Within it the two 
western towers rise : rather awkwardly rising above the 
screen, in a way that is suggestive of chimneys : between 
the two is a steep gable. We must not look longer at 
the outside now. Entering, you see before you the 



280 A little Tour in May. 

magnificent length, broken somewhat by the organ set on 
the screen between the choir and the nave. The roof is 
nearly 30 feet lower than that of York : but the eye is 
entirely satisfied. The ordinary visitor, in any first-class 
cathedral, misses nothing through such inferiority. And 
while the roof of York is of wood in the central alley, 
here the entire roof is of stone. Then, for perfect purity 
of the best style of Gothic architecture, surely this interior 
greatly surpasses York. The tabernacle work of the stalls 
here is very fine : the seats beneath very shabby. The 
rich windows effectually give you the " dim religious 
light " which is fitting. I do not know if the service is 
usually such at Lincoln, but assuredly it was very care- 
lessly gone through on that afternoon. The whole thing 
was heartless : the music was exceedingly bad. There 
was an anthem, very unimpressive, and miserably sung. 
Anything worse than the feeble peeping of two weak and 
ugly voices singing a long duet, could hardly be. Among 
the surpliced members of the choir, were four boys wear- 
ing purple gowns. The air of neglect which invested the 
worship, extends to the entire building. Nothing can be 
more unkempt than the grass plot surrounded by the fine 
cloisters, one side of which the sacrilegious Wren took 
away, substituting a hideous and inexpressibly shabby 
Doric arcade. In the middle of the grass plot stands a 
wretched edifice, apparently a pigsty, but really erected 
to protect a bit of old Roman pavement, discovered many 
years ago. 

The plan of the church consists of nave and choir, each 



A little Tour in May, 281 

With aisles : a great transept and a choir transept j while 
the western front may be esteemed as a third transept. 
There is a Galilee porch at the south-west corner of the 
great transept. The chapter-house has a high-pitched 
roof. The central tower, over the intersection of the 
great transept, is of incomparable grandeur and decoration. 
It is 268 feet in height, and once carried a spire, of 100 
feet additional. The western towers, 206 feet in height, 
were likewise crowned by lofty spires. These were of 
wood, and the central one was blown down three 
hundred years ago. 

The close here is less attractive than at many other 
cathedral cities. The palace is several miles distant : the 
deanery seems a pleasant abode. The city has no features 
of special interest, beyond a number of curious and 
generally rather shabby churches. The glory of the place 
lies in the cathedral, and the ancient buildings around it. 
From all parts of the town, you have varied views of the 
noble church : and the deep tones of the famous bell, 
the Great Tom of Lincoln, pervade the surrounding air. 

Next day was Thursday. The service yesterday after- 
noon was so badly done that it would be simply mortify- 
ing to go back. The utter lack of what could be called 
a congregation, and the general air of slovenliness, are 
disheartening in the presence of the magnificent results 
of the piety of departed ages. So let us walk about the 
great building without again entering it, and hope that 
some day it may be worthily beautified, and have a wor- 
ship worthier of its pristine glory. 



282 A little Tottr in May. 

Not very far away, there is something which has power 
to arrest us for a little on our way to our next cathedral. 
So by a train that goes at n.r^ a.m., let us speed away 
through flat and sometimes flooded tracts of fenland, by 
the river Witham, towards the ancient town of Boston, 
with its splendid parish church. An hour will bring the 
traveller thither. Never before beheld, how thoroughly 
familiar looks that grand tower, the famous Boston Stump, 
at the first view of it ! Its height is 262 feet : you will 
commonly hear it called 300. Quitting the railway 
station, you make towards the tower. You cross a bridge 
that spans the Witham, flowing between muddy banks in 
a strong and turbid current : then turning sharp to the 
left, you soon reach the west end of the church, which 
rises from the river side. An officer, of especial civility 
and intelligence, will show you over the edifice. It is a 
grand interior : 240 feet in length, without transepts, but 
with aisles : merely a nave and chancel. Finally, having 
possessed yourself of a key, furnished by the intelligent 
verger, you enter a little door, and go away, up and up a 
winding stair, till you emerge upon a stone gallery, halt 
way up the tower. Hence the view is vast in extent : 
but it may be vaster. So away up and up again, opening 
a red door with the key provided, till you find yourself at 
the very top of Boston tower. What a thin egg-shell of 
a thing it is ! At the summit a decorated circular waJl 
enclosing vacancy. You might as easily fall down inside 
the tower as outside. The stone parapet is so high, that 
you cannot see the ground immediately under the tower. 






A little To2lt in May. 283 

But you have a wide view of a flat region, which a few 
years since would have been mainly under water. That 
sea near is the Wash, into which the Witham flows and 
ends. In the other direction, you see as far as Lincoln. 
Boston is an interesting enough town : but the church is 
the sight. In the shop windows were many of the bright 
waistcoats, already seen. It was a fair day, and booths 
and shows abounded. Get dinner at an hotel overlook- 
ing the market-place : and then at five o'clock enter a 
train, which in an hour's time will convey you, through 
the most fenny of fen countries, by various places bear- 
ing the name of Deeping, to Peterborough. The Great 
Northern Hotel is just across a narrow yard from the 
station. And there is yet abundance of light for a first 
glance at the cathedral. 

There is no more charming close than at Peterborough. 
Cathedral, palace, arfd deanery are all here together : and 
nowhere will you find greener grass or more luxuriant 
foliage. A few minutes' walk from the hotel brings you 
to an antique gateway. Entering, you have the palace 
on the right, and the deanery on the left : the west front 
of the church is before you. What peacefulness and 
beauty are in this retired spot ! And trees, walks, grass, 
all are tended with the most pleasing care. You can 
walk all round the cathedral, close to its walls : upon its 
south side are many beautiful old buildings and quaint 
corners and courts, the remains of the ancient monastic 
pile. Failing though the light be, we must have one 
glance at the interior. The nave is of great length, con- 



284 A little To 217- in May. 

sisting of eleven bays : the choir has but four. The east 
end of it is apsidal. The walls and pillars of the nave are 
whitewashed: the wooden roof is flat, but painted in 
bright colours. The choir is free from whitewash: the 
wooden roof is brilliantly painted : the stalls are not yet 
forty years old. 

The plan consists of nave, choir, transept, and Lady 
chapel: the choir and nave having aisles. There is a 
great square tower where the transept intersects. You 
will find here the same arrangement as at Lincoln : a new 
west front built before a former one. The older front 
had two square towers, only one of which was carried 
up to its full height. In front of this has been placed a 
great western transept, flanked by two spires : the re- 
sult being that the west end of the church forms a some- 
what confused, though most beautiful mass of building. 
Three magnificent arches, each surmounted by a gable, 
form the west front : its breadth is 156 feet. The 
length of the church is 479 feet: the transept 184: the 
central tower is 150 feet high: the western spires 156. 

The light fails, and we must leave the fuller apprecia- 
tion of the cathedral till to-morrow. Returning to the 
temporary resting-place, the writer enters the railway 
station, and there for a little walks up and down. Years 
ago, when he had seen almost nothing, he saw this quiet 
city for the first time at seven o'clock on a misty summer 
morning : and simply wondered what life would be like 
to one living amid scenes so peaceful. Several times since 
then, passing through this station in a great express train. 






A Utile Toztr in May. 285 

he had beheld it in circumstances of desperate crowd and 
hurry. It is curious now to examine it leisurely, when all 
the bustle is gone. It is not nearly so big as it seemed 
before : like many things and men, it loses by familiar 
knowledge. Let us examine the bookstalls on either 
platform, and discover what orders of literature find most 
favour with the travelling Briton. Surely the quiet of 
this station is greatly interrupted during the hours of 
night. A fine moon shone through the window of that 
chamber where the writer strove to sleep : the window 
was unprovided with shutters: and the most awful shrieks 
of engines resounded all the night long. Doubtless the 
Great Northern engines are provided with louder whistles 
than any other engines, anywhere. Yet several railways 
converge at Peterborough : the Great Eastern, the Mid- 
land, the North- Western, as well as the Great Northern. 
No engine that passed appeared to create a less horrible 
noise than the rest. And to the aching head, the passing 
engines seemed innumerable. 

But morning comes at last 5 and morning service at the 
cathedral is at ten o'clock. Let it be said briefly, the ser- 
vice was very slovenly and bad : worse than the writer 
ever saw it in any cathedral whatsoever. The choir 
looked (whatever they really were) very irreverent and 
inattentive. The singing was excessively bad. Among 
boys and men, there was not a fine voice. Among the 
singing men were several of the very ugliest ever beheld, 
and several with voices of the most disagreeable quality. 
None, bad as they were, were so disagreeable as that of a 



286 A little Tour in May. 

short-winded clergyman, who intoned the prayers. His 
voice was unpleasant beyond expression, and it put one 
out of breath to listen to him. The gentleman who sat 
in the dean's place, came scuttling into church by himself 
some little time after the service had begun : and if he was 
paying devout attention to the service, which I do not 
doubt, I cannot but say that his manner did him grievous 
injustice. Many were the shapes into which he twisted 
himself ; many the leaves he turned over while a few 
other folk sought to say their prayers. I never saw 
mouths opening in so wide yawns as those of the choris- 
ters, big and little. The organ was hardly touched : but 
an old man with gray hair wandered in a conspicuous and 
most irritating manner about the organ gallery, turning 
over the leaves of large music books while the prayers 
were going on, as if to show he did not care a straw for 
them. Lamentable was the contrast between the noble 
church, and the careless and heartless worship. Consider- 
ing that a dean and canons-residentiary and some other 
folk are paid what would be a large stipend for a hard- 
working parish priest for doing very little, surely that little 
ought to be carefully and reverentially done. I do not 
know how the Peterborough service is commonly done : 
but no choir becomes horribly bad all of a sudden. 

Come away to the close, and try to forget this slovenly 
worship, walking under green trees and amid green graves. 
Yes, this can soothe the irritation of nerves and heart. 
Peacefulness and quiet beauty : much of the old monastic 
character lingers about the ancient Medehamstede. Trim 



A little Tour in AT ay. , 287 

walks, verdant grass : and everywhere in its circuit you 
can approach and lay a friendly hand on the church's 
ancient stones. It is a hardship, when a bit of a cathedral 
is turned into the wall of a private garden : all round it 
ought to be accessible to everybody. Graceful and beau- 
tiful is the apse, rising above the lower aisles : graceful 
and airy the western spires : and nowhere else will you 
find anything exactly like those three great arches, with 
deep recesses within them, which form the western front. 
Here Queen Catharine of Arragon was buried in 1^37, 
and Mary Queen of Scots forty-nine years later : both 
buried by the same sexton. 

Our train goes at 3 p.m. A crafty waiter told me he 
always told people the train went at 2.50, as he found 
human beings tend to be too late. Drive to another sta- 
tion, crossing the river Nene by an ugly wooden bridge, 
flouted by a grand railway viaduct of stone. Away to- 
wards the east. A wide flat plain, now mainly under 
water : you look back on the receding cathedral as across 
an inland sea. It is easy to think what all this must have 
been before the fen country began to be drained. The 
towers and spires of beautiful churches are many: and 
perfect the taste must have been of the old builders who 
set them in their places. You cross the wide and turbid 
current of the Ouse, by a bridge of great length; the 
train sometimes seems to have lost its way amid the waters. 
In an hour and a quarter, stopping at a station on an ele- 
vation above a flooded tract, you look out on the right 
hand. There is a slope, rich and green : hedges and 



288 A little Tour in May. 

trees : a little city: and a church of great length and very- 
peculiar aspect : the city and cathedral of Ely. 

As we had journeyed along in the train,, we had de- 
termined to be disappointed. It was impossible, we 
thought, to equal what we had already seen of princely 
Christian architecture. The first glance, and the 
thought of disappointment vanished. Longer acquaint- 
ance ; and we were here from Friday till Monday after- 
noon ; and Ely stands forth in our memory as all but 
the loveliest church, for exquisite decoration and glorious 
colour, amid all the lovely churches of England. 

Issuing from the railway station, you may enter a bus, 
which offers to convey you to the Lamb. Down a little 
slope : then a long, steady pull up-hill. A street of little 
promise j then on the right hand a grand gateway, through 
which a park-like bit of green grass and green trees, 
horse-chestnuts in their full bloom. On a little further, 
and the ancient deanery is on the right, and the ancient 
palace on the left ; and you pass under the west front of 
the cathedral. The Lamb is but a few yards off: and 
speedily the pilgrims are under that massive tower. 

Ely varies much from other cathedrals. Of course 
there are choir, nave, and transepts. But at the west end, 
instead of two towers, or two spires, or nothing but a lofty 
gable, there is one great tower, Then, over the intersec- 
tion of the great transept, taking the place of a central 
tower which fell five hundred and forty years since, is an 
octagon tower, from which rises an octagon of two stories, 
of wood covered with lead. The effect is, that in the dis- 






A little Tour in May. 289 

tant view of the cathedral the western tower is the greater 
object, and the central octagon comparatively insignificant. 
Then the Lady chapel, instead of occupying the usual 
space, is parallel with the north side of the choir, reaching 
to the east aisle of the transept. It is plainly fitted up for 
worship, and occupied as a parish church. Except Win- 
chester, this is the longest cathedral in England : 540 
feet. If the Lady chapel had stood in the usual place, it 
would have added 100 feet more. Thus it would have 
transcended Old St Paul's, whose length was 629 feet -, 
but whose unmatched spire, " the glory of the Christian 
world," was 534 feet in height. Strasburg, the highest 
remaining in the world, is 468 : Salisbury is 404. 

Entering Ely Cathedral through the Galilee porch at 
the west end, having lamented the ruin of the half of the 
turreted western front to the left of the great western 
tower, the first thing that impresses one is the length and 
narrowness of the central alley of the church. This 
greatly adds to the apparent height ; the actual height is 
76 feet. The roof is of wood : the aisles have stone 
vaulting. The nave is under repair : half the pavement 
was up, and lying about in great blocks. It is upon the 
octagon and choir that the incomparable hand of Mr 
Gilbert Scott has hitherto spent its pains : no words can 
express the glory of the result. Many open benches are 
set under the octagon, for the use of the congregation : 
the rood screen cuts off the choir, almost too effectually. 
The stalls are perfect : the stained glass rich and gor- 
geous: the use of colour on walls and roof brilliant, but not 



290 A little Tour in May. 

too brilliant. The place is not for an unskilled visitor to 
criticise, but simply to stand and humbly enjoy. The 
reredos, elaborate and lovely as in no other cathedral in 
England, is of alabaster: bloodstones and other pebbles 
are inlaid. We must walk about here a great many 
times before the details can in any worthy degree be taken 
in. Then, the day's worship being over before our com- 
ing, we go forth, and walk round the church. Before the 
west front is an expanse of grass and trees : the quaint old 
palace stands on its south side. The deanery, curious and 
old, is hard by the palace. An expanse of graveyard lies 
to the north of the cathedral, enclosed by the backs of old 
houses which front a street. Among these houses is a 
place, looking like a hayloft over a coach-house, which is 
inhabited by a loud bell : when that bell rings, people 
may know there is to be parochial service in the Lady 
chapel. At the east end, a little expanse of grass : on the 
south side various old houses : and passing through an 
avenue of horse-chestnuts, blazing with blossoms, you are 
in the little park-like space which we discerned through 
the ancient gateway at our first entrance into Ely. Plea- 
sant walks traverse it : shady and quiet. And from many 
points in them you realise the vast length of the church, 
crowning the summit of the swelling ground it stands on. 
Once Ely was indeed an island, famous for the eels which 
gave the name. And the desolate and scarcely passable 
fens stretching all around, made it an almost impregnable 
fastness, where the last of the Saxons maintained their in- 
dependence of the Norman yoke a while. 



A little Tour in May. 291 

While the light of that Friday evening lasts, let Ely be 
pervaded till it is well known. Sunday shall be spent 
here, but Saturday must be given to another place. 

Saturday was the loveliest, warmest and brightest of 
summer days. At 10.45 a Great Eastern train bears us 
through a great plain, to a great degree under water. 
Blossoming hawthorns arise amid the watery expanse: 
flooded gardens and fields speak of recent rain not yet 
poured out into the German Ocean. Deep drains are at 
the ends of the fields 5 and in the Fen country one comes 
to have a dignified idea of a drain : it is sometimes a great 
artificial river. Beautiful church spires and towers rise 
over the trees, on a host of spots somewhat raised above 
the flooded level. After a while, we enter on the rich 
undulating lands of Norfolk, well-wooded and beautiful. 
Here the railway stations and houses are built mainly of 
flints. At last in the distance there rises one great and 
graceful spire ; many houses crown a height to the left : 
and we have arrived at the ancient city of Norwich, two 
hours and a quarter from Ely. 

Of all our cathedrals hitherto, this is the poorest : yet 
to a mind unsophisticated by Lincoln, Peterborough, Ely, 
it is a very noble church. It has this graceful central 
spire, of 313 feet: no western towers ; ending simply in 
a gable. It has choir, nave, transept : the largest cloisters 
in England, shady and beautiful in the glaring day : and 
a length of 411 feet. You may enter by either of several 
gateways into the close : large, pretty, abounding in bright 
grass, and the fragrant shadiness of limes. The deanery, 



292 A little Tour in May. 

a pleasant-looking ancient bouse, is near the cloisters, on 
the south side of the church : the ancient palace, with its 
fine old trees, has the nave for its park fence or garden 
wall ; and the ruins of an old hall and chapel. The nave, 
of fourteen bays, vaulted in stone, and with the heavy 
round arches of the triforium as large as those below, 
makes the choir, of four bays, ending in a pentagon, seem 
small in comparison. But the church has great capabili- 
ties : and we learned with joy that the present dean has 
had Mr Gilbert Scott looking at it. Already Dr Goulburn 
has taken the choir from their former place in the organ 
gallery, and put them in the usual position of cathedral 
choirs. Norwich was the only cathedral which had this 
ugly arrangement, now happily at an end. But the 
choristers still wear blue gowns at service, except on 
Saturday evenings and Sundays, when they are clad in 
surplices as usual. 

We must return at four o'clock : so there is time for 
no more than a hasty glance at two or three of the many 
remarkable old churches of Norwich. A great crowd of 
people fills the large station. These are left ; and we 
journey on through excessive heat and dust, till at 6.10 
we are again at Ely. There, in the growing darkness, 
the band of the militia regiment, now out for training, 
played very prettily before the hotel. 

Here is Sunday morning, sunshiny and still : how 
beautiful that great tower, rising into the sapphire blue ! 
Service is at 10.30. The militia regiment passed, its 
band playing the tunes heard last night : the stock of 



A little Tour in May, 293 

music is not great. Let us be in good time. The militia 
form the larger part of the congregation : not a great one. 
The care and reverence with which the service is per- 
formed, are admirable. Gathering first in the south 
transept, the choir and clergy come in decorous procession : 
thirty-two surpliced men and boys in the choir. Dean 
Goodwin came, a man to be looked at with interest : and 
an old dignitary, looking very like an old country gentle- 
man. The choir and clergy took their places in the 
choir, imperfectly discerned through the too-massive rood- 
screen. Pugin'a idea, that Christian worship ought to 
consist in the performance by the officiating persons of 
certain rites which are imperfectly seen by the outside 
worshippers, prevails here. With difficulty did the wiiter, 
seated close to the screen, and familiarly knowing the 
liturgy, follow the prayers: the distant militia, not very 
familiar with the liturgy, plainly did (for the most part) 
follow them not at all. Most of them yawned awfully 
and constantly : they were manifestly very tired of the 
whole thing. The service was too fine for these plain 
folk. And indeed it was very beautiful. I could not 
but admire the not wholly unsuccessful attempts of the 
dean to read the commandments from the altar loud 
enough to be heard outside the choir. In due time the 
old dignitary, not the dean, ascended the beautiful pulpit 
of stone, just outside the choir. Why was not the pulpit 
to-day wooden ? It would have been more consistent 
with the sermon. The sermon lasted twenty-seven min- 
utes : while it was going on, I thought it had been three 



294 -A little Tour in May, 

hours and a half. It was awfully tiresome. The con- 
gregation, with rare exceptions, did not listen to it at all. 
I surveyed diligently my friends of the militia : hardly a 
face had the faintest trace of attention to what was going 
on. Of course they could not attend. The writer, by a 
great effort, forced himself to attend carefully. The 
preacher made many feeble and well-intentioned remarks : 
one felt getting a faint push in the right direction. But 
of his subject he had not the slightest grasp. He did not 
in the least understand what his text meant, though it 
was a very fine one. Oh why, after that sublime service, 
this wretched anti-climax ? Why did not Dean Goodwin 
preach that day ? I don't know what kind of preacher 
he is : but I know he was second wrangler : and I should 
hopefully have taken my chance. Yet the preacher was 
most gentlemanlike, and quite unaffected: doubtless a 
pious old man. I venture to think he used words, never 
to be used in church, when he said that " ladies and gen- 
tlemen, rich and poor," must be saved in one way. I 
have lately heard of a Scotch parson, who in performing 
a certain marriage ceremony, said to the man, " Do you 
take this lady" and so on : but to say nothing of the bad 
taste of any reference to social distinctions where they 
ought to count for nothing, nothing could be more need- 
less than the solemn warning at Ely. Who thinks any- 
thing else ? There was a day, whereon a godless old 
reprobate died, saying he felt sure that where he was 
going due respect would be paid to any one of his family : 
but that day is fled for ever, in this tract of the universe 






A little Tour {71 May. 295 

The writer lives in a hard-headed country, wherein to 
state such a thing would be too much like teaching Sir 
Isaac Newton the multiplication table. That is under- 
stood : let us get on to something else ! Service was over 
at 12.30: two hours. Then the procession departed with 
all decorous solemnity. 

After service, let us go and walk about that park-like 
expanse, under the blossoming horse-chestnuts, till the 
heat drives us in. At four o'clock, to evening service. 
The militia gone : the congregation small. The music 
was very good ; and there was no sermon. At half-past 
six there was service under the octagon. The cathedral 
staff was gone, and the choir closed : but the parochial 
congregation, usually assembling in the Lady chapel, wor- 
ship here in the evening. The cathedral bells do not ring 
for this service, but the loud bell in the seeming hay-loft. 
Nor do the worshippers find entrance at the western door, 
but by a little door in the transept. There was a large 
congregation, of humble appearance : evincing a hearty 
interest in the service. A few surpliced choristers appear, 
followed by two clergymen : they are arranged on benches 
placed outside the rood-screen. The prayers and psalms 
were intoned : the music very poor after that of the for- 
mer services of the day. Carefully did the two clergymen 
wheel about to the east, as the Gloria returned : so far as 
I could see, not a soul besides them did so. The sight 
recalled to me a day, on which I worshipped in another 
cathedral far away, yet within the realm of England. 
There, among many clergymen, there was a young lad, a 



296 A little Tour in May. 

deacon just ordained, who was often wheeling about to 
the east, and often bowing very low, when not one of 
the other clergymen did so. The effect was indescribably 
ludicrous. This I saw : and thought that the lad should 
either have stayed away, or conformed to the ways of his 
betters. Willingly would the wise man turn to the east, 
amid a congregation in use to do the same : willingly, 
likewise, to the west, north, south, or NNW. : but where- 
fore obtrude these little matters, wherein no principle 
earthly is involved, on good folk who may not like them ? 
Finally, one of the clergymen ascended the pulpit, and 
preached most admirably. He preached extempore, with 
entire fluency : he thoroughly arrested attention from the 
first word ; and before he closed, had risen into most ani- 
mated and pathetic eloquence. The views he set forth were 
unmistakably " high : " but he showed great ingenuity in 
trying to make them appear consistent with common 
sense. I could not but think that a man who could 
preach such a sermon, in spite of all the depressing influ- 
ence of being a curate, (as I learned he was,) might, 
placed in a position which would give him greater confi- 
dence, make a truly great and eloquent preacher. And 
oh, the contrast with the dismal twaddle which the gentle- 
manly old dignitary had preached from the same pulpit 
on the same day ! 

Cheered by this discourse, (in hardly a sentence of 
which I agreed,) let us return to the shady paths lying to 
the south of the great church. The hawthorn perfume 
fills the air : the blossoming chestnuts please the eye : 



A little Tour in May. 297 

the perfect stillness becomes the evening of the day of 
rest. And from this scene I pass in thought to another 
cathedral city, with a grander history by far than Ely : a 
city with just the same population : whose princely 
cathedral lies in desolate ruins by the shore of a lonely 
sea ; and whose historic days are done. And I wonder 
how things have gone to-day in the services of that city's 
church : in the conduct of whose services the writer has 
a grave responsibility. 

Next morning at ten o'clock, service again. There was 
hardly any congregation : yet the service was most heartily 
and beautifully done. York, on a weekday, is as good as 
this : but no other church at this time visited. At 12.50 
we bid Ely farewell, and speeding through a flat country, 
in half an hour are at Cambridge, never seen before. In 
the Bull, situated amid the most academic surroundings, 
we find our resting-place. 

In the time between Monday afternoon and Thursday 
morning, it is possible for the diligent traveller, who can 
spend all day abroad, to make Cambridge a possession, 
and a clear remembrance. Let me not emulate the 
guide-books : but say that it does not take very long, 
under judicious direction, to walk through every corner 
of every college, and visit the chapel and hall of each : to 
inspect every church worthy of inspection ; and to pace 
every gravelled path on either side the Cam till the aspect 
of trees, grass, water, bridges, has grown familiar. Noble 
trees, verdant grass, glorious retreats of academic quiet 
and learning, with what feeling shall the homely Scot, 



298 A little Tour in May. 

Glasgow-bred, regard you ? Each day in Cambridge, let 
the visitor go at half-past four to service at King's College 
chapel. A college chapel indeed, but three hundred feet 
long : and divided by a great screen, supporting an organ, 
into chapel and ante-chapel. Doubtless it is the finest 
specimen of perpendicular Gothic ; and (specially the 
interior) grand beyond expression : but it cannot hinder 
one's feeling that the perpendicular style is Gothic in its 
decadence. The marvellous stone roof, with its fan 
tracery, is a miracle of mechanical skill, and the stained 
windows are never to be forgotten : but yet there is not 
the charm about that huge oblong room which is about 
Ely choir and octagon, with their lights and shades and 
recesses. It is remarkable, too, how devoid of pretension 
is the altar end : there has been no endeavour to make it 
the cynosure of all eyes. A plain little table, with a 
couple of candlesticks on it : no reredos : no blaze of 
glory : just a dull corner, which you do not care to look 
at twice. But the service is all you can desire. On three 
successive afternoons there was a congregation that made 
the place look clothed and hearty. At the appointed hour, 
sixteen little choristers, in blue gowns, tripped up along 
the marble floor; and diving underneath their desk, 
gained their seats in unceremonious fashion. The grown- 
up men, eight, were in surplices. The music was hearty 
and beautiful ; the anthem each day was splendid. The 
lessons were read by students, two each day, in a very 
nice unaffected manner. The stalls are ugly : the shafts 
are like a series of whip-tops stuck together by the ends ; 



A little Toiir iu May. 299 

and they are united by round arches. The organ is a 
grand one; and the voluntary after service was played 
plainly with the purpose of waking the grand echoes of 
that astounding roof whereof Wordsworth sung. 

My space draws in : and it is not safe to begin any rela- 
tion of the glories of the great University. Suffice it to 
say that a rapt attention and a tolerable memory may in 
a few days turn these into familiar things. Thursday 
morning comes : at eight o'clock the pilgrims depart, 
without a tear. Hitchin, Peterborough : thence the swift 
Scotch express. York, Newcastle, Berwick : and at half- 
past eight here is Edinburgh. Rest for the night : tra- 
verse the well-known scenes next day, till the afternoon 
is melting into evening. Then the tunnel again : the 
stormy Frith : the railway that traverses an ancient king- 
dom : till amid the gathering shadows we reach that 
sacred spot whence the pilgrimage began, and gratefully 
find the little faces all right. 

Here, too, we have our cathedral : and on this sunshiny 
afternoon we may go and contrast it with those elsewhere 
seen. A noble church, four hundred feet in length : 
with nave of twelve bays, choir of five bays, transept a 
hundred and sixty feet long, having an eastern aisle 5 
chapter-house and Galilee. No western towers : the 
nave ended in a gable, with turrets, each a hundred feet 
high. And over the intersection of the transept, there 
was doubtless something : but whether tower alone, or 
tower and spire, no one knows. Alas, alas ! the noble 



300 A little Tour in May. 

church is a desolate ruin. Only the eastern and western 
gables remain, with the south wall of the nave, the beau 
tiful windows framing bits of sky. Almost everywhere, 
you can trace the foundations : and the bases of the shafts 
that bore up the central vault remain. In this carefully 
tended grave-yard, with innumerable daisies growing over 
them, Christian folk have been buried for twelve hundred 
years : through niches in the fortified wall, that looks 
north and east, you discern the ceaseless fluctuation of the 
wide sea. Doubtless the Reformation brought inestimable 
gains : yet in this country we had to take them accom- 
panied by grievous aesthetic loss, which need not at all 
have been. 



CONCLUSION. 

LET a small essayist, departing from the field wheron 
-/ he has had his day, say a word about his craft. 
He has always tried to write fairly and kindly : to say 
what he thought true : and if possible to help his anxious 
fellow-pilgrims to bear the burden of the day. He has 
sought to set things in an encouraging and consolatory 
light. To this end he has turned away as far as might 
be from the great field of the tragical and distressing, of 
which we have all known only too much. I knew well 
that round my little precinct there howls a great stormy 
wicked world : I did not want to see or hear more of it 
than I could help. I have kept to a small region of un- 
exciting topics, fit to be thought of quietly. We have 
quite enough of vexation and worry in our actual life : I 
wished that any one taking up such' a volume should be 
sure that he would not find any additional vexation here. 
There are wild tracts in the world of thought : very sub- 
lime, very awful, very heart-breaking : sometimes no 
worse than stinging with a million little envenomed 
stings. Other feet walk these. Great geniuses, in fiction 



3C2 Conclusion. 

and in tragedy, have led us through these realms, fasci- 
nated, shuddering, catching glimpses of awful black 
chasms, of irremediable wrong, of grinding misery, of 
inexpiable crime. Doubtless it is good for us sometimes 
to give ourselves up to that grand guidance : but it is not 
rest that we get under it. Many human beings find it 
hard wear of heart and head. " Of course, I read it," 
said Dr Parr of Sardanapalus ; "and could not sleep a 
wink after it." Not such should be the result of reading 
an essay. Indeed, just the contrary. I wished that who- 
ever came with me should (as it were) turn into a little 
green corner of a quiet garden, to rest a while. I was 
quite sure that we should not be suffered to rest too long. 
Something would soon come, and call us away from the 
peaceful place. But one would go back to the worry, the 
better for the quiet. And written in little intervals of 
rest, these pages were meant to be read in the little inter- 
vals of rest intercalated in the lives of busy people. 

Not without awe does the humble essayist think of 
the feverish wear through which writers of great genius 
do their work. These distinguished men work at an 
immensely high pressure. Most human beings work at 
low pressure. They do not know what they are 
capable of doing, under some awful necessity. We are 
told that any one seeing the fearful effort with which 
the French galley-slaves bent to their oars, would have 
said that no human being could have kept it up for so 
much as half an hour: yet by the very extremity of 
savage cruelty these poor wretches were often forced to 



Conclusion. 303 

row with that mortal exertion for fifteen hours at a 
stretch. Something analogous to that unutterable strain 
is in the case of writers who delineate the grander pas- 
sions. Shakspere, indeed, probably wrote with pulse un- 
quickened the wildest bursts of Othello : not so with 
lesser men. Once upon a time, there sat a man at a 
London window, whence he looked across the narrow 
street into an opposite chamber. Therein he beheld 
another man, who appeared to him as one mad. For he 
wildly strode the floor: tore his hair: dashed his head 
against the wall : then with eldritch laughter flew to- 
wards a little table, and sitting down wrote a few words 
on an awfully blotted leaf. But it proved not to 
be a madman at all 3 but an eminent dramatic author 
composing a tragedy. And Mr Dickens has put on 
record that when he had written that beautiful and 
touching chapter which records little Paul Dombey's 
death, he restlessly walked the streets of Paris all night, 
with a heavy heart. Yes : he had himself experienced 
the emotion whose reflection was to draw tears from 
scores of thousands of women and men. Very differently 
is the essayist's work done. There is no tearing of the 
hair: no wearily pacing the midnight streets. When he 
intermits his toil for a few minutes, he rather sits down 
by the fire in an easy chair, and with a thoughtful face 
looks into the flame. And when his theme would lead 
to exciting and painful reflections, he has learned by much 
use to evade them. Doubtless the essay-writing I mean 
would be a school of unworthy self-indulgence, were 



304 Conchtsion. 

it not that it takes up so small a part of the writer's 
life. 

It soothed and quieted one, amid much work and 
worry, to write all these pages : it was meant to do the 
like to read them. And the writer has reason to believe 
that in the case of many it has done so. Good people in 
his own country have shaken their heads at the notion of 
a clergyman giving his little leisure to the production of 
such essays j and have said his small ability might be 
better employed, in a way reminding one of the words of 
the country magistrate : " Prisoner at the bar, Providence 
has blest you with health and strength, instead of which 
you go about the country stealing ducks." For the 
opinion of these good people the writer can say sincerely 
he never in any degree cared. But he is resolved not to 
go on with the old thing till it becomes a weariness. And 
so, thanking many unknown friends for their patience, I 
cease for the while : in all likelihood, for altogether. 



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The HORSE'S FOOT, and HOW to KEEP IT SOUND. By W. 

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Stables and Stable-Fittings. Bythesame. Imp. 8vo. with 13 Plates, 15s. 

Remarks on Horses' Teeth, addressed to Purchasers. By the same. 
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On DRILL and MANOEUVRES of CAVALRY, combined with Horse 
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The HORSE: with a Treatise on Draught. By William Youatt. 
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A DICTIONARY, Practical, Theoretical, and Historical, of Com- 
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INDEX. 



Acton's Modern Cookery 27 

Alcock's Residence in Japan 22 

Allies on Formation of Christendom 20 

Alpine Guide (The) 23 

Alvenslbben's Maximilian in Mexico .... 5 

Apjohn's Manual of the Metalloids 12 

Arnold's Manual of English Literature. ... 7 

Arnott's Elements of Physics 11 

Arundines Cami 25 

Autumn holidays of a Country Parson . . 8 

Ayre's Treasury of Bible Knowledge 19 

Bacon's Essays, by Whately 5 

Life and Letters, by Speddino 5 

Works 6 

Bain on the Emotions and Will 9 

on the Senses and Intellect 9 

on the Study of Character 9 

Ball's Alpine Guide 22 

Barnard's Drawing from Nature 16 

Bayldon's Rents and Tillages 18 

Beaten Tracks 22 

Becker's Charicles and Gallus 23 

Beethoven's Letters 4 

Benpey's Sanskrit Dictionary 8 

Berry 's Journal s and Correspondence .... 4 

Billiard Book (The) 26 

Black's Treatise on Brewing 28 

Blacki.bt and Friedlander's German and 

English Dictionary 8 

Blaine's Rural Sports 25 

Veterinary Art 26 

Blight's Week at the Land's End 23 

Booth's Epigrams 9 

Bourne on Screw Propeller 17 

Bourne's Catechism of the Steam Engine.. 17 

Handbook of Steam Engine 17 

Treatise on the Steam Engine ... 17 

Bowdler's Family Shakspearr 25 

Boyd's Manual for Naval Cadets 27 

Bramley-Moore's Six Sisters of the Valleys 23 
Brande's Dictionary of Science, Literature, 

andArt ... 13 

Bray's (C.) Education of the Feelings 10 

Philosophy of Necessity 10 

on Force .... 10 

Brinton on Food and Digestion 27 

Bristow's Glossary of Mineralogy 11 

Brodie's (Sir C. B.) Works 15 

Constitutional History 2 

Browne's Exposition*39 Articles 18 

Bockle'j History of Civilization 2 

Bull's Hints to Mothers 28 

Maternal Management of Children. 28 

Bunsen's (Baron) Ancient Egypt 3 



Bunsen's (Baron) God in History 3 

Memoirs 4 

Bunsen (E.Dk) on Apocrypha 20 

's Keys of St. Peter 20 

Burke's Vicissitude^ of Families 5 

Burton's Christian Church 3 

Cabinet Lawyer 28 

Calvert's "Wife's Manual 21 

Cates's Biographical Dictionary 4 

Cats' and Farlie's Moral Emblems 16 

Chorale Book for England 16 

Christian Schools and Scholars 10 

Clough's Lives from Plutarch 2 

Colenso (Bishop) on Pentateuch and Book 

of Joshua 19 

Collins's Horse-Trainer's Guide 26 

Commonplace Philosopher in Town and 

Country 8 

Coninoton's Chemical Analysis 14 

Translation of Virgil's j&nzid 25 

Contansbau's Pocket French and English 

Dictionary 8 

Practical ditto 8 

CoNYBEAREand Howson's Life and Epistles 

of St. Paul 18 

Cook on the Acts 18 

Copland's Dictionary of Practical Medicine 15 

Coulthart's Decimal Interest Tables 28 

Counsel and Comfort from a City Pulpit .. 8 

Cox's Manual of Mythology 24 

Tales of the Great Persian War 2 

Tales from Greek Mythology 24 

Tales of the Gods and Heroes 24 

Tales of Thebes and Argos 24 

Cresy's Encyclopaedia of Civil Engineering 17 

Critical Essays of a Country Parson 8 

Crowe's History of France 2 

Crump on Banking, Currency, & Exchanges 27 

Dart's Iliad of Homer 25 

D'Acbigne's History of the Reformation in 

the time of Calvin 2 

Davidson's Introduction to New Testament 19 

Dayman's Dante's Divina Commedia 25 

Dead Shot (The), by Marksman 2b 

De Burgh's Maritime International Law.. 27 

De la Rive's Treatise on Electricity 11 

De Morgan on Matter and Spirit 9 

De Tocqoev.lle's Democracy in America.. 2 
Disraeli's Speeches on Parliamentary Re- 
form 6 

Dobson on the Ox 27 

DovEonStorms 10 

Dyer's City of Rome 2 



30 



NEW WORKS PUBLISHED 



by LOXG^VIANS and CO. 

Horslf.t's Manual of Poisons I* 

Hoskyns's Occasional Essays 9 

How we Spent the Summer 22 

Howard's Gymnastic Exercises 15 

Howitt's Australian Discovery 2* 

Rural Life of England 23 

Visits to Remark abl e Places 23 

Hudson's Executor's Guide 28 

Hughes's (W.) Manual of Geography 10 

Hullah's Collection of Sacred Music 16 

Lectures on Modern Music IS 

Transition Musical Lectures .... 15 

Humphreys' Sentiments of Shakspeare 16 

Hction's Studies in Parliament 8 

Inoelow's Poems 25 

StoryofDoom 25 

Jameson's Legends of the Saints and Mar- 
tyrs 16 

Legends of the Madonna 16 

Legends of the Monastic Orders 16 

Jameson and Eastlake's History of Our 

Lord 16 

Jenner's Holy Child 25 

Johnston's Gazetteer, or Geographical Dic- 
tionary 10 

Kalisch's Commentary on the Bible 7 

Hebrew Grammar 7 

Keith on Fulfilment of Prophecv 18 

Destiny of the W^rld 18 

Kecler's Lake Dwellings of Switzerland.. 12 

Kesteven's Domestic Medicine 15 

Kirbt and Spencb's Entomology 13 

Knight's Arch of Titus 23 

Lady's Tour Round Monte Rosa 22 

Landon's(L. E- L.) Poetical Works 25 

Latham's English Dictionary 7 

River Plate 10 

Lawrence on Rocks 11 

Lecki's History of Rationalism 3 

Leisure Hours in Town 8 

Lessons of Middle Age B 

Lewes' History of Philosophy 3 

Letters of Distinguished Musicians 4 

LiDDEixand Scott's Greek- English Lexicon 7 

Abridged ditto 7 

Life of Man Symbolised 16 

Lindley and Moore's Treasury of Botany 13 
Longman's Lectures on the History of Eng- 
land 2 

Loudon's Agriculture 18 

Cottage. Farm.Tilla Architecture 18 

Gardening 18 

Plants 13 

Trees and Shrubs 13 

Lowndes's Engineer's Handbook 17 

Lyra Domestica 21 

Eucharjstica 21 

Germanica 16. 2i 

Messianica 2j 

Mvstiea „, 

Sacra - 1 

Macaulay's (.LonTi Essays 3 

History of England 1 

Lays of Ancient Rome. 24 

Miscellaneous Writings 8 

Speeches 6 



Eastlake's Hints on Household Taste .... 17 

Edwajrds' Shipmaster's Guide 27 

Elements of Botany 13 

Ellicott's Commentary on Ephesians .... 19 

Lectures on Life of Christ «19 

Commentary on Galatians 19 

Pastoral Epist... 19 

— — Philippians , &c . . 19 

■ Thessalonians... 19 

Engel's Introduction to National Music . . 15 

Essays and Reviews 20 

on Religion and Literature, edited 

by Manning, First and Second Series.. 20 

Ewaxd's History of Israel 19 

Fairbairn on Iron Shipbuilding 17 

Fairbairn's Application of Cast aud 

"Wrought Iron to Building 17 

. Information for Engineers... 17 

Treatise on Mills & Mill work 1 7 

Farrar's Chapters on Language 7 

Felkin on Hosiery and Lace Manufactures 17 

Ffoclkes's Christendom's Divisions i.0 

Fliednek's (Pastor t Life 5 

Francis's Fishing Book 26 

(Sir P.") Memoir and Journal 4 

Friends in Council 9 

Froude's History of England 1 

Short Studies on Great Subjects 8 

Ganot's Elementary Physics 11 

Gilbert and Churchill's Dolomite Moun- 
tains 22 

Gill's Papal Drama 3 

Gilly's Shipwrecks of the Navy 22 

Goodeve's Elements of Mechanism 17 

Gorle's Questions on Browne's Exposition 

of the 39 Articles 18 

Grant's Ethics of Aristotle 5 

Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson .... 8 

Gray's Anatomy 14 

Greene's Corals and Sea Jellies 12 

Sponges and Animalculae ) 2 

Grove on Correlation of Physical Forces.. 11 

Gwilt's Encyclopaedia of Architecture — 16 



Handbook of Angling, by Ephemera 26 

Hare on Election of Representatives 6 

Harli-y and Brown's Histological Demon- 
strations 15 

Hartwio's Harmonies of Nature 12 

Polar World 12 

Sea and its Living Wonders 12 

Tropical World 12 

Haughton's Manual of Geology 11 

Hawker's Instructions to Young Sportsmen 26 

Hearn's Plutology 1 

on English Government 1 

Helps's Spanish Conquest in America 2 

Henderson's Folk-Lore of the Northern 

Counties 10 

Herschel's Essays from the Edinburgh 

mid Quarterly Reviews .... 13 

Outlines of Astronomy 10 

Hewitt en Diseases of Women 14 

Hodgson's Time and Space 9 

Holmes's System of Surgery 14 

Hooker and Walker-Arnott's British 

Flora 13 

Hopkins's Hawaii II 

Horne's Introduction to the Scriptures 19 

Compendium of ditto 19 



NEW WORKS published by LONGMANS and CO. 



31 



Macaclay's (Lord) "Works 1 

Macfarren's Lectures on Harmony 15 

MacLeod's Elements of Political Economy 6 

Dictionary of Political Economy 6 

Elements of Bankin.' 27 

. Theory and Practice of Banking 27 

McCulloch's Dictionary of Commerce 27 

Geographical Dictionary 10 

Magcire's Irish in America 23 

Life of Father Mathew 4 

Rome and its Rulers 4 

Malleson's French in India 3 

Ma.n nino on Holy Ghost 20 

's England and Christendom 20 

Marshall's Physiology 14 

Marshman's Life of Havelock 5 

History of India 3 

Mahtinbau's Endeavours after the Chris- 

tianLife 21 

Masse y's Historv of England 2 

(G.) on Shakspeare's Sonnets 25 

Massingberd's History of the Reformation. . 4 

Maunder's Biographical Treasury 5 

Geographical Treasury 11 

Historical Treasury 3 

• Scientific and Literary Treasury 13 

Treasury of Knowledge 28 

Treasury of Natural History .. 13 

Mac r y's Physical Geography 10 

May's Constitutional History of England. . 2 

Melville's Digby Grand 24 

■ General Bounce 24 

Gladiators 24 

Good for Nothing 24 

Holmby House 24 

Interpreter 24 

Kate Coventry 24 

Queen's Maries 24 

Mendelssohn's Letters 4 

Merivale's (H.) Historical Studies 2 

(C.) Fall of the Roman Republic 3 

Romans under the Empire 3 

Miles on Horse's Foot and Horseshoeing... 26 

on Horses' Teeth and Stables 26 

Mill onLiberty. 6 

on Representative Government 6 

on Utilitarianism 6 

Mill's Dissertations and Discussions 6 

Political !- conomy 6 

System of Logic 6 

Hamilton's Philosophy 6 

6 
14 
IS 
21 
21 
21 
14 



St. Andrews' Inaugural Address 

Miller's Elements of Chemistry 

Mitchbll's Manual of Assaying 

Monsell's Beatitudes 



His P/esence— not his Memory.. 
' Spiritual Songs' 



Montgomery on Pregnancy 

MooRs'sIrish Melodies 24 

Lalla Rookh 24 

Poetical Works 24 

'Dr. GOFirstMan 12 

Morell's Elements of Psychology 9 

■ Mental Philosophy 9 

Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History 21 

Mozart's Letters 4 

Mulleh's (Max) Chips from a German 

"Workshop 9 

— Lectures on the Science of 

Language 7 

(K. O.) Literature of Ancient 

Greece 2 

Murchison on Continued Fevers 14 

Muke's Language and Literature of Greece 2 

New Testament,illustrated with Wood En- 

■ eravings from the Old Masters 16 

I Newman's History of his Religious Opinions 4 



Nicholas's Pedigree of the English People 9 

Nichols' Handbook to the British Museum 28 

Nightingale's Notes on Hospitals 28 

Nilsson's Scandinavia 12 

Odlino's Animal Chemistry 14 

Course of Practical Chemistry.... 14 

Manual of Chemistry 14 

Original Designs for Wood Carving 17 

Owen's Lectures ou the Invertebrate Ani- 
mals 12 

Comparative Anatomy and Physio- 
logy of Vertebrate Animals 12 

Oxenh am on Atonement 20 

Packe's Guide to the Pyrenees 22 

Paoet's Lectures on Surgical Pathology ;.. 14 

Pereira's Manual of Materia Medica 22 

Perkins's Tuscan Sculptors 15 

Phillips's Guide to Geology 17 

Pictures in Tyrol , 22 

Piesse's Art of Perfumery 18 

Chemical, Natural, and Physical 

Magic 18 

Pike's English and their Origin 9 

Pitt on Brewing 28 

Playtime with the Poets 25 

Pratt's Law of Building Societies 28 

Prescott's Scripture Difficulties 19 

Proctor's Saturn 10 

Handbook of the Stars 10 

Pycropt's Course of English Reading 7 

CricketField 26 

Raikes's Englishman in India 23 

Reade's Poetical Works 25 

Recreations of a Country Parson 8 

REiLY'sMapcf Mont Blanc 22 

Rivers's Rose Amateur's Guide 13 

Rogers's Correspondence of Greyson 9 

Eclipse of Faith 9 

Defence of ditto 9 

Essays from the Edinburgh Review 9 

Reason and Faith 9 

Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and 

Phrases 7 

Ronalds's Fly-Fisher's Entomology 26 

Rowton's Debater 7 

Rood's Aristophanes 25 

Russell on Government and Constitution. . 1 

Sandars's Justinian's Institutes 5 

Schd bert's Life, translated by Coleridge.. 5 

Scott's Lectures on the Fine Arts 1ft 

Seebohm's Oxford Reformers of 1498 2 

Sewell's After Life 23 

Amy Herbert 23 

— Cleve Hall 23 

—Earl's Daughter 23 

Examination for Confirmation ... 20 

Experience of Life 23 

■ Gertrude 23 

Glimpse of the World 23 

History of the Early Church 3 

Ivors 23 

Journal of a Home Life S3 

Katharine Ashton 23 

Laneton Parsonage 23 

Margaret Percival 23 

Passing Thoughts on Religion. ... 20 

Preparation for Communion 20 

Principles of Education 20 



32 



NEW WORKS published BY LONGMANS and CO. 



Sewell's Readings for Confirmation 20 

Readings for Lent 20 

Tales and Stories 23 

Ursula 23 

Shaw's Work on Wine 28 

Shepherd's Iceland 22 

Shipley's Church and the World 19 

TractsfortheDay 20 

Short Whist 28 

Short's Church History 3 

Smith's (Southwood) Philosophy of Health 28 

(J.) Paul's "Voyage and Shipwreck. . 18 

(G.) King David 19 

— Wesleyan Methodism , — 4 

(Sydney) Miscellaneous Works .... 8 

Mora) Philosophy 8 

Wit and Wisdom 9 

Smith on Cavalry Drill and Manoeuvres .... 2fi 

Southey's (Doctor) 7 

Poetical Works 24 

Spriogdale Ahbey 23 

Stanley's History of British Birds 12 

Stebbino's Analysis of Mill's Logic 6 

Stephen's Essays in Ecclesiastical Bio- 
graphy 5 

Lectures on History" of France. . 2 

Stirling's Secret of Hegel 9 

Stonehenge on the Dog 2fi 

on the Greyhound 2T 

Sunday Afternoons at the Parish Church of 

a Scottish University City (Aberdeen). . . . 8 



Taylor's (Jeremy) Works, edited by Eden 21 
(E.) Selections from some Contem- 
porary Poets 25 

Ten.vent's Ceylon 13 

Wild Elephant 13 

Thirlw all's History of Greece 2 

Thomson's (Archbishop) Laws of Thought 6 

(A. T.) Conspectus 15 

Timbs's Curiosities of London 23 

Todd (A.) on Parliamentary Government.. 1 
Todd's Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Phy- 
siology 14 

• and Bowman's Anatomy and Phy- 
siology of Man 15 

Trollope's Barchester Towers 23 

Warden 2;' 

Twiss'sLawof Nations 27 



i Tyndall's Lectures on Heat. 11 

i Sound II 

Memoir of Faraday & 

i Ure's Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, 

andMines 17 



Van Der Hoeven's Handbook of Zoology. . 11 
Vaughan's (R.) Revolutions in English 

History 1 

Way toRest 10 

Walker on the Bine 26 

Ward's Workmen and Wages 6 

Watson's Principles and Practice of Physic 14 

Watts's Dictionary of Chemistry 13 

Webb's Objects for Common Telescopes 10 

Webster & Wilkinson's Greek Testament 19 

Weld's Florence 22 

Wellington's Life, by the Rev G. R. 

Gleig 4 

"O'ells on Dew 11 

AVf.vdt's Papers on Maritime Law 27 

West on Children's Diseases 14 

Whately's English Synony mes 5 

Logic 5 

Rhetoric 5 

Life and Correspondence 4 

Whately on the Truth of Christianity.... 21 

Religious Worship 21 

Whist, what to lead, by Cam 23 

White and Riddle's Latin-English Dic- 
tionaries 7 

Winslow on Lisht 11 

Wood's Bible Animals 12 

Homes without Hands 12 

Wright's Homer's Iliad 25 

Yonge's English-Greek Lexicon 7 

Abridged ditto 7 

Horace 25 

Young's Nautical Dictionary 27 

YoiiATTon the Dog 26 

onthe Horse 26 



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